LUCHA ARRIVED A LITTLE late for work, but happier than ever and unaware that it was the last day of complete happiness she would ever have. From that day forward everything would change, but at that hour of the morning nothing seemed wrong. No, more than that, in Lucha’s eyes the world shone even more brightly than usual and glowed warmly with a pinkish hue. She was totally in love with her husband even though they’d been married for ten years. She had never imagined that was possible. Much less that she would still be learning new ways of making love. Júbilo had turned out to be a wonderful sexual partner.
The previous night they had discovered new positions that didn’t even appear in the Kama Sutra. And through them she had experienced incredible multiple orgasms. A night like that was well worth ten years of financial hardship. None of the little problems Júbilo and Lucha had gone through in their marriage was able to diminish in any way their love for each other. Even Júbilo’s recent inclination to drink didn’t seem like an insurmountable obstacle. Lucha was fully aware it was temporary and that Júbilo relied on it only as a way to forget about his problems, since for a man like him it must be very difficult not to be able to support his family. Sometimes Lucha even felt guilty about being so demanding. She only hoped that it was clear to Júbilo she wasn’t interested in money itself, but only in its power to help her provide her family with a decent life.
She wasn’t the only one who was concerned. Lolita had told Lucha on several occasions that perhaps she was asking too much of Júbilo and criticized her for having so many aspirations. Lucha didn’t take this the wrong way. She knew Lolita had said what she did out of love, that she was guided by her honesty and integrity. Lolita was a patient woman who didn’t expect anything from life. She was always the first to get to the office and the last one to leave. She performed her work quietly. She never acted in an irresponsible or unconventional manner. She was discreet, prudent, timid, modest, and very, very proper. She was so eager to please others that she never made a comment that was out of place: she was driven by an overwhelming fear that people would stop liking her. When she was a young girl, her father had abandoned her and her mother, and she never wanted to be abandoned again. So to avoid it, she was ready to do anything for anybody, to the point of servility. However, her need to please only caused men to run away from her. She never had a novio and she always fell in love with men who couldn’t love her back.
Lucha loved and respected Lolita very much even though she knew her friend was in love with Júbilo. Lucha didn’t hold this against her. After all, Júbilo was the kindest and most loving person in the world. When the three of them were still working together, Lucha had always been pleased to see the looks Lolita threw at her husband from time to time. It never bothered her, just the opposite, it made her feel proud. Nor did she take it the wrong way when her dear friend defended Júbilo with sword drawn, or that Lolita seemed to be so worried about the situation Lucha and Júbilo found themselves in.
Lucha considered Lolita her confidante and she was grateful for her sincere concern. The only thing Lolita didn’t seem to understand was Lucha’s attitude toward money. Lucha had received a very specific education from her parents about money and how to use it. She knew very well what money could buy and she didn’t hesitate to spend it. That didn’t mean she was a compulsive spender. She simply knew that money, among other things, was important for a sense of security. To feel one could live peacefully in a house that could withstand earthquakes, rain, and the cold. Her great preoccupation about having money to pay for a good school for her children stemmed from her belief that the better their education, the better they would be able to provide for their own families. That’s why she had felt so vulnerable during the first months of her marriage to Júbilo. It was the first time she had been exposed to hardship, and it terrified her.
Fortunately, it hadn’t taken her long to realize that she would never find a more worthy man than Júbilo, and that the way to stop worrying about money was to go out to work herself and help her husband support them. And since she had started working things had improved greatly. She felt that her marriage was more solid than ever and that Júbilo’s emotional state would improve as soon as he found another job. And she was willing to help him all she could to make sure every centavo they earned was used properly.
Because of this, whenever Lucha bought anything, she liked it to be the best, and also the best value. She was of the firm belief that you get what you pay for. And she was very particular about the way things looked too. She believed that living in a clean, pleasant, harmonious environment raised the spirits. Lucha had a rare talent for spotting the best buys the moment she entered a shop. They never escaped her notice even when they were hidden among many other things. She always found the most beautiful dress, which unfortunately usually turned out to be the most expensive. But Lucha never wasted much time in hunting down bargains. According to her reasoning, it was much better to always buy the best, because cheaper things usually faded or shrank the first time they were washed.
When she went into a furniture store, it was the same. She was always drawn to the most expensive piece of furniture made with the highest-quality wood and the best finishes. She knew from experience that they would last the longest, just as she knew that the best drink was the least harmful to one’s body. She had the same good eye for evaluating people. From the first moment she saw Júbilo she had appreciated his other virtues as much as his physical beauty. He was an intelligent, sensible man, possessed of a wonderful sense of humor, sensitive in his dealings with others, passionate in bed, respectful, gentlemanly, in short, truly unique.
Lucha was amused by Júbilo’s jealousy toward don Pedro. She could never have even looked at a person of such low social, spiritual, and physical standards. Don Pedro was the complete opposite of the light, harmony, and good taste radiated by Júbilo. Don Pedro was a swarthy, ugly, evil-looking, disgusting, disrespectful, immoral, vulgar opportunist, who didn’t know what proper manners were, much less how to treat women and show them respect. She wasn’t about to trade down. And don Pedro was out of his mind if he thought he could buy her with a stupid scarf. Lucha wasn’t crazy enough to renounce Júbilo and her children for such an unworthy man. He was just a poor fool with money in his pocket. If money had been the only thing that mattered to her, she could have gotten it ages ago, and by the handful, from her boss. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted much more than that. She wanted to spend the rest of her days by Júbilo’s side and to remain just as much in love with him as she was now, as she had been last night! She blushed as she remembered again what Júbilo and she had done in bed.
Her employer’s presence in front of her desk brought her back to reality. Don Pedro was offended because Lucha had left the office the previous evening without even saying good-bye to him, even though she had been wearing the expensive scarf he had given her! What hurt him most was seeing the look of love she gave her husband. He had never inspired that kind of look on anyone’s face, much less a woman like Lucha, and he was determined to do whatever it took to make that woman his: and to amortize the cost of the scarf. Women were all equally ungrateful, they only wanted men for their money, but he was going to teach them how to treat a man like him with respect. Tired of being brushed off by Lucha, he wasn’t willing to wait any longer to get his hands on her. He was full of rage and planned to overcome her resistance to him any way he could. The cold, distant tone Lucha used in her dealings with him was extremely irritating. He had tried everything, but nothing worked with her. He had to change his strategy to persuade her to sleep with him. He had invested a lot of money in Lucha and now he intended to collect for all the flowers, the chocolates, and that damned scarf. He was fed up with feeling ignored and disdained.
He had decided to punish her by doing the same to her, but she hadn’t even noticed. And to make matters worse, the ingrate had allowed herself the luxury of arriving late for work! So he had punished her by loading her down with a ton of dictation. Almost everyone had left for the day and the office was practically deserted.
“Have you finished?”
“Almost.”
“Ay, Luchita! You left so quickly yesterday, you didn’t even say good-bye to me. I was planning to invite you to dinner.”
“I appreciate the gesture, but you know I’m married. I went out to celebrate with my husband.”
“I hope he treated you well.”
“Yes, he did.”
“Did he give you a present?”
“The best.”
“Better than the scarf I gave you?”
“You know what, don Pedro? Your question is in very poor taste. I suggest you don’t ever ask me a question like that again, well, that is, if you ever want to get anywhere in society.”
“You really think you’re some fine filly, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
Don Pedro felt the sudden urge to slap Lucha to wipe the look of disdain and superiority with which she stared back at him off her face. And Lucha felt the sudden urge to hand him her resignation right then and there. She didn’t like the way she was being treated one bit. No, señor! Her family’s financial situation was still dire, but she wasn’t pregnant anymore and she could easily find another job, even a better-paying one, where she wouldn’t have to put up with a cretin like don Pedro. But neither of them immediately acted on their impulses. Don Pedro swallowed his aggression, turned around, and entered his office, shouting from the open doorway:
“Lolita, please come to my office!”
Instead of finishing the letters in front of her, Lucha began to write her letter of resignation. She had already made up her mind, but she was going to do it properly, not impulsively. That’s what education and intelligence were all about. When she had finished the document, she placed it in her desk drawer, picked up her purse, and left the office. Before going home, she wanted to get Júbilo some bread from Café Tacuba to prolong the good taste left in their mouths from the night before. As she walked back to her car, she suddenly realized she had left the car keys on her desk. She turned around and returned to the office. She couldn’t help smiling like an adolescent in love—she loved this feeling of distraction.
When she returned to the office, there was no one there. The desks were empty and silence reigned. Lucha’s footsteps echoed through the building. But the light was still on in don Pedro’s office. Lucha tiptoed past so her boss wouldn’t hear her. She didn’t want to be caught alone with him. As she noiselessly picked up her keys with her fingertips, Lucha heard the sound of sobbing coming from don Pedro’s office. She froze for a few seconds to make sure she had heard correctly; yes, there it was again, a woman was crying.
Lucha steeled herself as she opened the door: she saw Lolita lying curled up in a corner, weeping. Lucha ran to her side and with horror deduced what had happened. Lolita’s clothing was torn, and her stockings were bloodstained. She was in a state of total shock. When she saw Lucha, she clung to her friend and began to scream desperately. She told Lucha that don Pedro had raped her. Then she begged her not to tell anyone, because she would die of shame if anyone else knew, especially Júbilo. Lucha consoled Lolita as best she could and tried to convince her to file charges against don Pedro at the police station, but Lolita stubbornly refused. She didn’t think she could bear the humiliation. So Lucha tried to persuade her to go to the hospital, but again met with resistance. Finally, after a long time, Lucha was able to convince Lolita to come with her to her brother Juan’s house. He was a doctor and would attend to her. Lolita accepted on the condition that Lucha stay by her side the whole time.
Lucha kept her promise and stayed with Lolita, holding her hand and wiping her tears, until she could finally take her home and put her to bed. They had to break the news to Lolita’s mother: her daughter had been the victim of a terrible attack and that was why she had arrived home so late and in this condition.
Lucha was dead tired when she got home. Seeing Lolita in such a sad state had been a very jarring experience. She never imagined that something even more terrible was waiting for her. Ramiro’s death represented the end of all that she held dear in life: her family and her love for Júbilo.
That night, don Pedro had not only robbed her friend of her virginity but at the same time profaned her own home. He had destroyed Lucha’s image of Júbilo and Júbilo’s image of her. How could Júbilo have doubted her?! Lucha had thought that if anyone in the world knew her best, it was Júbilo. If she had ever put all her faith, her trust, her dreams, her intimate desires in someone, it was him. And suddenly she realized that the seventeen years they had known each other meant nothing. With a single question, Júbilo had ended it all. How could he have called her a whore? Didn’t he know her? What good had it done to give him not only her body but her very soul? It seemed unbelievable that the person she trusted most, and who supposedly loved her more than anyone else, was the same person who had now destroyed her whole world, a world she had never dreamed could deteriorate or be devalued. It was unbearable to find out that the one man she thought was different from all the rest turned out to be just like them. Lucha decided she would never again allow him, or any other man, to hurt her. She wanted to have nothing more to do with men.
The day after Ramiro’s funeral she asked Júbilo for a divorce. Because of the emotional state they found themselves in, Júbilo asked that she wait a few days for a decision, but Lucha didn’t want to listen to him or to accept any of his arguments. Her heart had been destroyed; she had buried it beside Ramiro. She felt as if she had been murdered. Just like don Pedro.
That same day, a headline had appeared on the front page of the newspaper: MURDERED WITH THE SAME WEAPON THAT KILLED HIS FORMER LOVER. It was an account of don Pedro’s death at the hands of an unknown woman. The story read:
His was a life of cockfights and women. The director of the Telegraph Office was found dead this morning outside a hotel in the Plaza de Garibaldi, in the company of one of his regular girlfriends. He was killed by a .44 caliber bullet from the same gun with which he had killed another young mistress years ago. After that incident, due to his money and influence, he escaped prosecution. Pedro Ramírez emerged from obscurity during the Cristero Rebellion amid rumors of arms dealing to go on to enjoy an enviable political career. Ramírez held several administrative posts in the national government, among which the most important was as federal representative for the state of Puebla. According to initial investigations, Pedro Ramírez left his office on Friday evening and joined several friends at El Colorín, an infamous nightspot located in the Plaza de Garibaldi. At his hip was the .44 revolver, the same weapon responsible for his death later that night. Waiters at the club stated that Ramírez was a regular customer who often frequented the place in the company of a variety of women. Official reports indicate that later that night, Pedro Ramírez left the nightclub and walked toward a nearby hotel in the company of two young women with whom he apparently intended to spend the night. A short distance from the nightclub, the group was met by a third woman, who argued loudly with Ramírez and, during the ensuing scuffle, Ramírez’s weapon discharged and he was killed. The mystery woman fled the crime scene, and no physical description of her is available. Apparently she had never been seen in the area before, and the only information police were able to gather was that she was well dressed, which leaves many questions still to be resolved in this homicide investigation.
WHEN A CHILD DIES so many questions remain unanswered, particularly when the parents are burdened with feelings of guilt. What would have happened if I hadn’t fallen asleep? Could I have saved the baby if I had been at home? Would my son still be alive if I hadn’t been drinking? Does God punish? What have I done to deserve this punishment? Am I really capable of protecting and caring for my family? How can this kind of neglect ever be forgiven? How can I ever overcome this sense of betrayal? They each had their own doubts about themselves, but it was clear that neither Lucha nor Júbilo was able to trust their partner again. The tragedy put an end to that. They could no longer even look each other in the eye. The pain of their son’s death was unbearable, and each with their mere presence reminded the other of it.
Some people believe one should forgive as easily as one loves, but others refuse to accept this because they just can’t forget. Júbilo couldn’t forget that he had been in charge of the child when he died, nor that a well-dressed woman had killed don Pedro in a jealous rage on that very same night. Lucha couldn’t forget that Ramiro had died because of Júbilo’s neglect, much less that that neglect had been caused by his drinking. To forgive it is necessary to accept what cannot be changed, and neither of them was able to do that, because their own guilt prevented it. Lucha felt that if she hadn’t been so demanding, Júbilo would never have felt so useless and wouldn’t have started drinking. Ramiro had died because Júbilo had fallen asleep, but if she had been at home she would have heard him. Júbilo thought that if he had been capable of earning enough money, Lucha would never have felt the need to go out to work. She would never have had to deal with don Pedro and fall into his clutches, as he suspected. Only the passing of years could heal their souls, and then they still had to clear up any lingering doubts. It would take them both fifty-two years, an Aztec solar cycle, to talk about what happened that night and to finally put their minds at rest.
But at the time, neither of them could see clearly; they were both busy trying to forgive the unforgivable, to find a little relief, to free themselves of guilt, to somehow continue living with the terrible memory of what had happened. So the news of Lucha’s new pregnancy took them by complete surprise and raised new questions. They were in the middle of divorce proceedings. Júbilo felt this was not the right time to have another child, but Lucha felt just the opposite. To her, the unborn child represented a connection between them. She saw it as a living testimony of the love they had shared, as proof that all those years had been worth the trouble, and she would fight tooth and nail to keep it. But Lucha had decided the child would belong to her alone. She didn’t want to share it with Júbilo. She struggled to get the divorce through as quickly as possible, even though it was against the advice of her entire family. All she could think about was kissing and cuddling her unborn child, the product of the most loving night of her life, the night before Ramiro’s death. She felt with this new pregnancy life was giving her back something that it had mercilessly taken from her. That was how she wanted to see it. And looking at it more closely, she even thought she should be grateful to the gods for the help they were giving her. To begin with, they had removed don Pedro from her path so her life could be improved. After all, the wretch more than deserved to die. But what Lucha just couldn’t fathom was why they had taken Ramiro from her. That was something she would never understand, even though they seemed to be trying to console her with the arrival of a new child.
FOR JÚBILO, IT WASN’T so easy to accept becoming a father for a third time. He was worn out, empty, he didn’t feel up to facing a new child, to saying: “I am your father. I brought you into this world and I am the one who is supposed to provide you with food and clothing, but guess what, I don’t have any money. And I’m supposed to take care of you and love you, but let me tell you, I’m no good at those things: I tend to get drunk and fall asleep while my children suffocate. I don’t think I’m good for you; I can’t watch out for you while you sleep; I’m no good at that, I might let you die.”
At the moment, Júbilo didn’t even feel capable of taking care of himself. He was filled with self-recrimination. The fear of hurting others made him look for ways to efface himself as a human being, to avoid everybody else, to numb his conscience. It hurt to wake up. It hurt to see Raúl. It hurt to look at Lucha. It hurt to smell the flowers in the garden. It hurt to walk. It hurt to breathe. The only thing he wanted to do was die. To get rid of his physical body once and for all, because emotionally he was already dead. So he chose to hang out in the cantina, to stay there all the time. To end his pain. To end his struggle.
There, he could forget about everything and everyone. The only effort he had to make was to raise the bottle to his lips. He would spend all day drinking and at night he would lie in the cantina’s doorway begging for money for more drink, without washing, without eating. His inseparable companion during this time was Chueco López. Chueco was his teacher in his new life on the street. When the cantina was open, they used its bathroom when they needed to, but when it was closed, to relieve themselves they had to go to the Sagrada Familia church, the same church where Lucha and Júbilo had been married years before. It was sad for everyone in the neighborhood to see Júbilo in this condition, and no one hesitated to give him money when he asked for it. Besides the affection in which he was held, everybody owed him a favor, so they couldn’t refuse, even though they knew that Júbilo would use the coins they gave him to keep on drinking. Everyone knew his child had died and they understood his despair. Some tried to talk to him, to give him advice, but Júbilo couldn’t hear them; he was lost in the alcohol. His physical and mental condition deteriorated rapidly. He suffered all kinds of calamities. He was robbed, and his jacket and shoes were stolen, but he didn’t even notice. Some days he woke up vomiting, others, soiling himself, still others, thrashing and striking the ground. His legs became swollen, his feet cracked and split open, and his heart bled day and night.
And that’s how he lived until he had completed a cycle of fifty-two days. The number fifty-two was, of course, significant to the Aztecs, because the sum of its digits yields seven. Seven times seven fits inside a year, so to them fifty-two represented a complete cycle of life.
The fifty-two days that Júbilo spent drinking represented a phase he had to go through to realize he didn’t really want to die. He came to this conclusion one day when his brother-in-law Juan came looking for him. Júbilo could no longer stand up. When he saw Juan, he clung to his hand and said, “Help me, compadre!” Juan took him to the hospital, where Júbilo began his recuperation.
We’re talking about a slow and painful convalescence that included learning how to live again. The first thing Júbilo had to face was the withdrawal from alcohol, then regaining movement in his legs and arms, and finally the proper functioning of his whole body. But the most difficult thing without a doubt was trying to win back his family. When he left the hospital, Lucha was already seven months pregnant. She had gotten herself a new job at the National Lottery, in addition to her original job at the Telegraph Office. Because don Pedro was dead, she had not found it necessary to hand in her resignation after all. She was more beautiful than ever, but she didn’t want to have anything to do with Júbilo. She was pleased enough that he had recovered, she had even been the one who told her brother Juan where to find Júbilo, because she had heard it from a neighbor. She had followed his recovery with great interest from a distance, but that’s how she wanted to keep him, far away from her and her children.
Júbilo had to make an enormous effort to get back on his feet, to find work again, and to convince his wife he was going to fight to preserve his marriage any way he could. Lucha’s parents played an important role at this stage. Although they had once tried to dissuade their daughter from marrying Júbilo, they now did everything they could to convince her she should forgive him and allow him to return home, because they loved him like a son. They had had years to see what a wonderful man he was, and his mother-in-law had become his best ally. She never tired of defending him, and she didn’t stop praising him until she managed to soften Lucha’s heart and convince her daughter to meet with the man who was still her husband. They had never finalized the divorce, because the law prohibited it while Lucha was pregnant.
Júbilo arrived at the house looking very presentable. His in-laws had taken Raúl home with them so Lucha and Júbilo could speak openly without interruption. As soon as they saw each other, their bodies felt the urge to run toward each other and embrace, but their minds restrained them. Júbilo was thin, but he reminded Lucha of the boy she had first seen when she was thirteen. Lucha was more voluptuous than ever. Her enormous belly drove Júbilo crazy with desire. After talking and crying for a long time, Júbilo asked her to show him her stomach. Lucha lifted her maternity dress so Júbilo could admire her ripeness, and they ended up in bed, holding each other tightly.
A heavy rain fell from the sky and filled the room with the smell of damp earth. Lying there holding Lucha and listening to the rain, Júbilo distinctly felt his soul return to his body. The rain was a reminder that he had been dead, that months before, his spirit had migrated to a higher sphere, and that it had now returned to occupy its rightful place back on Earth. The rain represented the resurrection of water, droplets that had evaporated from the earth to take on a new form in heaven, and then return to Earth once more. The sound of the rain falling and the thought of the child in Lucha’s womb were for Júbilo the best song of life ever. It became clear to him that he was being given a second chance to live, and he knew he couldn’t waste it.
The love Lucha and he shared had generated a new existence, palpable inside this belly on the verge of bearing fruit. And the beating heart of that being was the best reason for remaining like this, in a close embrace, for the greater part of the afternoon, until they were interrupted by the onset of premature labor. Soon a seventh-month newborn arrived into the world like a gift from heaven.
Júbilo called her Lluvia and swore he would never, ever be separated from her, no matter what. He wanted to be all ears to keep her safe, and he was ready to give her all the love he had inside him. He was eager to show his appreciation of each extra day of life he had been given. And so he did. Júbilo remained living under the same roof as Lucha until Lluvia got married.
Those years weren’t all sweetness and light. Lucha and Júbilo were never able to completely patch up their marriage. Don Pedro had left behind him a great shadow that loomed over everything, from their house to the office. Júbilo got his job back at the Telegraph Office, but it wasn’t the same anymore. Something bad had happened there, and Lucha had kept it a secret.
“WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL me this before? Why did you keep it to yourself for so long?”
The sound of the telegraph transmitter’s ceaseless tapping filled the room. Júbilo moved his fingers swiftly, but he received no answer. His blindness prevented him from realizing that it had grown dark and that Lucha couldn’t read the computer screen anymore to see what he was “saying.”
Then Lucha stood up from her chair and ran to the bedroom door. Opening it, she shouted at the top of her voice:
“Ambar! Please come here!”
Lluvia came running, alarmed by her mother’s shouts and thinking that her father’s condition had taken a turn for the worse, but when she entered the room she saw what the emergency was, and immediately set about rectifying the situation.
“What is your father saying?”
“He says…it was his duty to take care of you and to fill your life with laughter, and he couldn’t do it…he asks you to forgive him for having failed you. His only aim was to love you. He understands he didn’t always know how, but you have always been, and will always be, the person he has loved most.”
That isn’t what don Júbilo had signaled at all, but he loved hearing his daughter interpret his words in that way. He made a sign of complicity and gave a deep sigh. Finally Lluvia had dared to give voice to what she desired more than anything. Lluvia understood this. And she knew that she hadn’t made it up; she was convinced that she was simply repeating the words she had heard so long ago, while she was waiting in her mother’s womb for the best moment to be born. When Lluvia had interpreted her father’s words she had merely been faithful to the voice that had echoed through the corners of their house for so long without ever daring to make itself heard.
When Lluvia saw that her mother’s eyes had taken on an unusual shine, she knew her interpretation had been right. She had managed to unearth emotions that had remained buried beneath pride and aloofness for such a long time. Lluvia was about to discover a new side to her mother. At first, she had been surprised by the look of pain on her mother’s face when she first saw how sick Júbilo was. She had never imagined her mother could feel so much on his behalf. And now as her mother’s eyes glistened with love, Lluvia felt as if she had made a discovery much more important than that made by the archaeologist who found Coyolxauhqui. All these years, beneath layer upon layer of coldness, her mother had kept hidden a loving gaze that could melt anyone’s heart! The shine in her eyes came from the deepest recesses of her heart. It was unbelievable that it could have gone unnoticed. Lluvia had assumed that her parents hadn’t communicated at all for a long time, but now she became aware of her error.
She reflected on how in 1842 Samuel Morse had discovered that cables weren’t necessary for transmitting messages and that wireless telegraph communication was possible, since electric currents traveled just as swiftly without cables as with them. He made that discovery one day when he saw a boat on a river accidentally cutting through an underwater cable: he realized that this didn’t interrupt the message that was in the process of being transmitted.
Similarly, as Lluvia witnessed the way her mother’s hand rested on her father’s without a word passing between them, it proved to her that inside the resonating matrix that makes up the cosmos, the transmission of energy occurs on a permanent basis. She wondered whether this invisible and intangible communication had always existed between her parents, and whether she was only just realizing it now that she had discovered she had a wonderful facility for perceiving it.
Curiously, don Júbilo’s illness, which brought so much suffering with it, was what allowed Lluvia to discover that her parents’ bond had been unbroken since her birth. She would love to have known this when she was younger. What serenity it would have brought her childhood to realize that although communication between her parents seemed to be broken down, in fact energy continued to circulate from one to the other. Even though the lines were down, their love kept traveling as swift as their desire! She only needed to look at her parents’ intertwined hands to understand so many things. Her mother’s rage, her constant frustration at not being able to kiss and embrace her husband as she wanted, the way she directed her anger at her children instead of at him. Her father’s yearning, the way he sought out music and turned it into a substitute for Lucha’s caresses. In a second it all made sense to her. How she would have liked to understand much earlier, but everything happens in its own time and there is no way to speed things up to one’s liking. For example, it took don Júbilo his whole life to rebuild the bridge that had been broken. He finally managed it a mere moment before dying, and he left the world in peace.
He spent most of his final day in a coma, unable to use his telegraph transmitter. He had waited for Lucha to visit him before he died. Lluvia was convinced that the light in her mother’s eyes would illuminate her father’s way in his travels beyond this world. They said good-bye without speaking, but with much love.
THERE IS NOTHING LIKE popular wisdom. There are so many sayings that ring so tremendously true, and yet their full meaning isn’t really felt until one experiences them firsthand. I have often repeated the saying “You never know what you’ve got till it’s gone,” but it wasn’t until my father died that I understood what these words really meant. His absence is immeasurable. There is no way to explain it, to quantify how alone I now feel. The only thing that is clear to me is that I am not the same anymore. I will never again be don Júbilo’s daughter. I will never again feel like a protected child. I will never again know the reassurance that there is a man in this world who will always give me his unconditional support, no matter what.
It is difficult for me to conceive of a world without my papá. He was always by my side, in good times and bad. When I was sick, my papá was there. When I was upset, my papá was there. During celebrations and holidays, my papá was there. During school vacations, my papá was there. Always smiling, always attentive, always ready to help me, whether it was to take my children to school, to crack walnuts for chiles en nogada, or to accompany me to the flea market at Lagunilla. Whatever it was, from the moment he opened his eyes until he shut them for the last time, my papá was always there for me.
I know it’s selfish to think this way. The life my papá led in his last months was no life at all. He suffered so much. He hated depending on others. His death was really a blessing, and that it happened the way it did. Surrounded by love, with all the people who loved him so much at his side, in his own bed and not in some cold hospital. The only thing that still pains me is that I didn’t manage to take him to see his beloved K’ak’nab again, the beach at Progreso, where he first learned to swim. We had planned the trip, but he was never well enough to let us make it. At least he was able to say good-bye to the sun. The morning he died, he asked me to put him in front of the open window to greet it one last time. He fell into a coma and that afternoon he died. Following his final instructions, we dressed him in his white linen suit, the one he wore when he danced danzón with my mamá. And then we brought him to the funeral home.
It was a cloudy afternoon; the sun never made an appearance, but my mother arrived wearing dark glasses. It was obvious she was wearing them to hide her eyes, which were swollen from so much crying. It didn’t surprise me at all. I could identify with her pain. What did surprise me was that she called me by my real name. As we began to walk through the cemetery, my mother took me firmly by the arm and said, “Don’t let go of me, Lluvia.” She seemed so vulnerable and small! I imagined how lonely she must feel to have lost for the second time the man who had been her husband.
When we returned home from the cemetery, after tearful good-byes with Lolita, don Chucho, Nati, and Aurorita, I closed the door to the room that had been my father’s and didn’t open it again for a week. I couldn’t bear to see his empty bed, his silent radio, his still telegraph, his empty chair, all desolate and abandoned. But after seven days had passed, the need to feel my father’s presence drew me back into his room and made me sit in his chair. The room still held his scent, and the arms of the upholstered chair still retained his warmth, but he was no longer there. I would never again hear his footsteps, the sound of which had always brought me such peace. From the time I was a little girl, as soon as I heard him come home, I would know everything was going to be all right, that any problem would be lessened just by his presence. Now that was all gone. I thought about the overwhelming experience of watching him die, of being at his side the moment he departed. I had thought I was well prepared for facing his death, but I was wrong. One is never prepared. The mysteries of life and death are too powerful. No mind can fully embrace them. It is very difficult to understand what occurs in the third dimension. We only know that the deceased are no longer here, that they have gone and left us alone. Anyone who has seen a lifeless body knows what I am talking about.
Seeing my father’s stiff body lying on his bed reminded me of the horrible feeling I had experienced one day as a child, when I saw a marionette hanging from a nail, after a puppet show. A few moments earlier I had seen it speak, dance, walk, and suddenly there it was, immobile, empty; it had lost its soul, had stopped being a character and become just a piece of painted wood. The difference between the marionette and my papá was that the puppet could come back to life in the hands of the puppet master, but my father couldn’t. That body would never again speak, move, laugh, walk. That body was dead, and I now had to sort out his possessions.
I preferred to deal with it right away to avoid prolonging my mourning. I opened his drawers and began to fold his clothes, to organize his records and his books. I set aside his records by Virginia López and Los Panchos for myself. Then I discovered a small box that obviously held his keepsakes. I opened it slowly, out of respect. Inside I found a photograph of my mother when she was about fifteen. An oval picture of me from elementary school. A photo of my children, and one of my brother. A small envelope containing a curl of baby hair and a note in my father’s handwriting that said, “memento of my beloved Ramiro.” A small notebook with notations of significant Mayan dates, and a detailed drawing of a Mayan stela. A guitar pick and a matchbox. When I opened it, I discovered my first tooth, with a note by my father recording the date it had fallen out.
That day instantly came back to me. My papá had taken me to my bed and helped me put the tooth under my pillow for the mouse to come and take away.
“What’s going to happen to my tooth, papá?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, m’hijita, the mouse will come and take it away, but in its place he’ll leave you some money,” he replied.
“I already know that,” I insisted, “but later, what’s going to happen to my tooth?”
“Later?”
“Yes, once the mouse has it.”
“Oh! Well, he’s going to keep it in a little box with the rest of his most treasured possessions.”
“No, papi, you don’t understand. I want to know what’s going to happen to my tooth. Is it going to fall apart?”
“Well…yes, but not for many, many years—it will eventually turn into dust—but don’t worry about that now, you just go to sleep, my Chipi-chipi.”
MY FATHER WAS RIGHT. The “mouse” kept my tooth with the rest of his most treasured possessions, and although it was still in good condition, it is going to end up turning into dust, but not for many, many years. Maybe I will never see it. But these thoughts helped me to overcome my pain. I stayed there for a while thinking about the dust. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Everything that lives ends up as dust. We walk amid dust from butterfly wings, flowers, stars, rocks. We breathe the dust of fingernails, hair, lungs, hearts. Each minuscule particle of dust carries with it traces of memories, nights of love. And at that moment, dust stopped being a symbol of accumulated solitude for me, and became just the opposite. Millions and millions of presences of beings that have lived on Earth are in that dust. Floating there are the remains of Quetzalcóatl, Buddha, Gandhi, Christ.
In that dust were mingled bits of skin my papá had left behind, little pieces of his fingernails, his hair. They were spread over the whole city, over the pueblos he had traveled through with my mother, over my whole house.
Not only that, but my father lived on in my body, in that of my brother, my children, my nieces and nephews. His legacy, both physical and emotional, was present in all of us. In our minds, in our memories, in the way we lived, laughed, spoke, walked. Pondering on this during the funeral, it allowed me to go over and give my brother a heartfelt hug, something I hadn’t done in many years. And it allowed me to reconcile myself with life.
With the passing of the days, my life has started to return to normal. At times, as I go about my daily business, I get the feeling that my father is accompanying me, and that fills me with a sense of peace. Sometimes I can even hear his voice echo clearly in my head. I’m not sure if my belief that my papá is close by comes from my desire to feel good, but whether it’s true or not, I do know that wherever my papá is, he would love to know that I have gone back to taking the astronomy classes I gave up when I got married, that I am learning the Mayan language, and that as soon as Federico’s son, my grandson, has learned to read and write, the first thing I shall teach him is Mayan numerology, so that his heritage is not forgotten.
Last night I had a very revealing dream. My papi and I were riding in his old car, the ’56 Chevy. We were driving to Progreso, on the Yucatán peninsula. The highway was full of butterflies. Some of them struck the windshield. I was driving and suddenly my papi asked me to let him drive. Without waiting for my reply, he reached for the steering wheel. Despite his blindness, I wasn’t afraid to let him drive. My papá laughed happily and I joined in. I felt a little afraid only on the curves, because he didn’t turn the wheel fast enough. On a sharp turn, to my surprise, he kept going straight ahead; but instead of falling into the void, we flew up into the air. We speeded over several provincial cities and in all of them people on the ground waved at us. Many campesinos eagerly waved their sombreros, as if they recognized us. When we reached the ocean, my papi said, “Look, Chipi-chipi,” and he quickly jumped in the water and began paddling around. I was surprised, given his Parkinson’s, that he could move about so easily.
A sound slowly awakened me from this deep dream and brought me back to reality. It was a message being tapped out in Morse code on the wooden head of my bed, which is turned to face north. Curiously, it came today, on the fourteenth of February. In addition to celebrating love and friendship, in Mexico we also use this day to commemorate telegraph operators, although not many people remember that anymore.
Telegraph operators, those people who played such an important role in the history of telecommunication, have now been forgotten. I can understand why no one would want to remember don Pedro, but it makes me sad that few people would take a moment, before they go on-line on their computers, to remember that in its day the telegraph was as important as the Internet is now, and that telegraph operators made an essential contribution to the enjoyment we have of instant communication today. Well, sometimes life seems ungrateful, but it doesn’t really matter. The interesting thing about the communication process is that in one way or another it allows us to express the words that come from within us. Whether they are written, spoken, or sung, they fly through space charged with the echoes of all the other voices that have preceded them. They travel through the air bathed in the saliva from other mouths, humming with the vibrations from other ears, and throbbing with the beat of thousands of hearts. They cling to the very core of our memories and lie there in silence until a new desire reawakens them and recharges them with loving energy. That is one of the qualities of words that moves me most, their capacity for transmitting love. Like water, words are a wonderful conductor of energy. And the most powerful, transforming energy is the energy of love.
All those whose lives my father helped to change would always call him on February fourteenth to honor him. Today, the first ones to call were Jesús and Lupita. They were very saddened by the news of his death, the death of my papá, the telegraph operator, the man who knew how to unite thousands of people, who knew how to express their hopes and desires. And ultimately, that is all that really matters, that we all remember him. He will always endure in our memory, thanks to the transforming power of his words. And by the way, the words in the message that was tapped out on my headboard were:
“Dear Chipi-chipi, death does not exist and life is wonderful. Live it to the fullest! I shall love you always. Your papá.”