Lorenzo’s articles were published in the Astronomical Journal and in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and were received in Mexico with growing acclaim as his fame grew. In the hallways of the Department of Education, at the university, at the Colegio Nacional, they spoke of the “extraordinary internationally renowned astronomer.”
In 1948 Rudolph Minkowski had indicated that the numbering of planetary nebulae was complete, and the Draper Catalog increased the number of stellar objects from 9,000 to 227,000, adding only one planetary nebula. However, at Tonantzintla between 1940 and 1951 Lorenzo and his team had discovered 437 objects in a six-hundred-degree-square area. That contribution placed Mexico at the top of the ranking system.
Lorenzo now lived in a whirlwind. Named vice president of the International Astronomical Society and member of the Royal Astronomical Society, he traveled frequently to international conferences. Have all men become astronomers? he wondered. I can’t believe I’m going to speak with more than two thousand people. He began his expositions with “I’m going to speak Spanish with a slight English accent. I’m an astronomer with a very good star.” At the conferences they compared results, they learned of one another’s specializations, they competed with one another, but above all, they discussed. Ah, blessed discussion.
He flew from Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland to the McDonald Observatory in Texas to work with Otto Struve. Speaking with Fritz Zwicky and visiting him at his home in Switzerland was gratifying, even more so because Zwicky was now studying the stars in the constellation known as Bernice’s Hair. Lorenzo returned to MIT to attend a symposium on the composition of
gaseous nebulae, and from there he crossed the Atlantic to Mount Stromlo in Australia to continue working on the T Tauri stars. Seeing the specters of the Andromeda galaxy and the Hydrus triangle, Lorenzo discovered that the objects once considered stellar cumuli in those galaxies were no more than nebulae from emissions similar to that of Orion. Until then it was believed that the T Tauri stars could be found only on the dark edges of the emission regions. But in the Australian sky, as in Tonantzintla, a great number of T Tauri stars shone in different regions, variable in their luminosity as well as in their spectral characteristics.
The same T Tauri stars that Lorenzo worked on with William Wilson Morgan, of the Atlas of Stellar Spectra, would lead him to the discovery of those that would be called flare stars.
Based on the systematic study of galactic cumuli of different ages, Lorenzo showed that flare stars occurred in a population of young stars. He established their evolutionary sequence and described them as smaller and colder than the sun: “These flare stars suddenly increase their brilliance. They produce gigantic explosions in a matter of seconds or minutes, increasing their luminosity thousands of times, in some cases to return to their normal state hours later.”
Lorenzo was admired for his discovery of novas and supernovas. The blue stars in the galactic south pole already had the acronym of his last name, as did other stellar objects—a comet and blue-colored and ultraviolet galaxies. With more than seventy-four published works and an honorary doctoral degree from Case Institute of Technology, he could at last feel satisfied. Case confirmed that his discoveries had given his university and his country distinction, and in future years, students and astronomers from many nations would benefit from them.
When Walter Baade read the article on RR Lira variable stars in the Astronomical Journal, he invited Lorenzo to Caltech. Baade, a German immigrant and observational astronomer, had established the distance scale of the universe, but with the discovery of two types of RR Lira stars, Lorenzo determined that the universe was twice as big. Certainly the universe was much bigger than Shapley thought.
At Caltech, Lorenzo thought a lot about Shapley, whose claims had now been surpassed. That was what science was—a chain in which a scientist came to be a link to the following one. Only the older astronomers still talked about the debate between Heber Curtis and Shapley regarding the nature of galaxies. Hubble and the expansion of the universe were cult objects.
Directing Tacubaya didn’t distract him from conducting his own research, and when, following Erro’s death, the dean offered him the additional directorship of the Tonantzintla Observatory and the Astronomy Institute of UNAM, he was thrilled. Carlos Graef congratulated him. “What do you know? You’re the astronomer. You can handle all this and more. We need you at the university; you’re part of the inventory at Tacubaya; and with regard to Tonantzintla, you’re the only one who can push it forward.”
One Sunday at noon, Diego dropped in on Lorenzo at Tonan-tzintia: “If the mountain won’t come to us, brother, we will come to the mountain. But first take me to meet your telescope, the famous forty-inch one.”
Lorenzo was excited by Diego’s enthusiasm, and they became involved in a discussion that returned them to their adolescence. They went back to their perennial topic—endless time. “Time will continue after our death, Diego,” Lorenzo said. It consoled him that science was a process, that the experiments were linked; where one stopped, another continued on. He repeated, “Eternity is man’s invention.”
Diego reflected on the big bang and all the marvelous exactness of the universe: “It doesn’t vary even a millimeter, Lencho. We’re going to go to the moon, to Mars. We’re going to see all that milk in the Milky Way.”
Lorenzo reminded him of the millions of galaxies of the expanding universe.
“You see that? Where is the limitation?” Diego smiled with his little boy’s smile.
“The limitation is in us,” concluded Lorenzo, much less optimistic than his friend.
“Do you remember the discussions we had about religion, Lencho? You said that it gagged you to talk about it because you always ended up saying something stupid. Professor Elorduy’s image of an old bearded man seated on a cloud with his son to his right was intolerable. ‘How can you understand the cosmos without a vital and organizing force?’ you asked. No one could talk you out of your need to organize the power of the universe, and you kept repeating, ‘I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in God,’ as if you were possessed.”
“I’m a little like Tennyson’s King Arthur. Returning defeated from the war that had absorbed his life, surrounded by deception. The queen had betrayed him. His kingdom, which had once been the envy of all, was a disaster. He said that he could see God in the miracle of the stars and in nature. ‘But I don’t see him in men, blind with hatred and passions, capable of murder and the scourge of war, as if all this were the work of a lesser god, incapable of taking his plan to a higher realm.’ I understand Tennyson. The perfection and order of the cosmos are impressive, but evil predominates on Earth. Man is capable of inconceivable crimes. In our time we have witnessed the diabolical concentration camps, the Holocaust, and the atrocious exterminations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
The discussion became tense when they talked about hunger. “Listen, Diego, democracy does not exist in Mexico. An illiterate cannot vote or elect anyone. How can they understand what a political program is? People need to reach a basic economic level to be able to defend their choices. What can a poor person without a salary defend? That’s the reality.”
“What is your solution, Lencho, if the Mexicans don’t have a vote or a voice in the government’s decisions?”
Lorenzo insisted on education, and he dissolved into criticism of the Church, the greatest stumbling block to social development in Mexico: Son, you must endure, and yours will be the Kingdom of Heaven. The Catholic Church had castrated millions of Mexicans, thrown them out into the street, defenseless, and Lorenzo would never forgive that.
“They’re not all like that, Lencho.”
In reply, Lorenzo told his friend that he would take him to Te-petzintla,
in the Sierra Madres north of Puebla, three hours from Zacatlan, where the apples grew. “It’s a valley where everyone walks barefoot, with their mecapals around their foreheads, carrying firewood. I have a good friend there who works for a pittance on a plot of land that doesn’t even belong to him. He’s told me, ‘Eating is like drinking. It’s harmful if you have too much.’ His children are tiny and will never grow; they suffer from extreme malnutrition. One is ten and looks like he’s six. Little as they are, they’re so used to hunger that many of them don’t want to eat. Diego, when I’m around, they hide. If you saw their stained skin and the big circles under their eyes, you’d feel the same impotent rage that I do.”
“Brother, when are you coming to Mexico City?”
“I go to UNAM and to Tacubaya four days a week, but I feel more detached from the city all the time.”
“You shouldn’t isolate yourself so much. I’m having a dinner party next Thursday, come.”
“The truth is, I behave like the abominable snowman.”
“That’s even better, because I have a snow queen to introduce you to. My wife welcomes everyone with open arms, and there are several volumes waiting for you in the library that you haven’t seen.
Even at Diego’s, Lorenzo was a fish out of water. Clara, Diego’s wife, talked about books, concerts, exhibitions, but no one ventured to talk about scientific theory. By chance, they reflected on the weight of Einstein’s brain. With three or four drinks under his belt, Lorenzo started to tell them about his adolescent euphoria when he saw James Maxwell’s equations on the blackboard: “How was it possible that this guy woke up one morning and wrote out the formulas for electrical energy?” He got excited, although no one else shared his feeling. Diego would have agreed with him, but as the perfect host, he was going from one group to the next. “Surely Maxwell must have a brain different from everyone else’s, which allowed for such a great discovery.” After a while his listeners deserted him. Aren’t they interested in understanding the universe? he asked himself, puzzled.
Lorenzo would become indignant when he heard people speak of the purity of Vasconcelism. Pure? Vasconcelos? Where was “el
maestro”? What had he really done for Mexico? What the hell had he given the Mexicans? Nothing. He just confused them. Did he teach them to oppose the government? Come on. Let’s pull our heads out of our asses. He deserted his followers like a groom leaving his bride at the altar—all dressed up and aroused. The dilemma of Mexican youth was precisely that—they had no one to believe in. There were no great elders to look to. Only traitors.
“What purpose did it serve to distribute the top one hundred classic books in the fields?” he asked Diego. “Who was going to read them? It’s money down the drain. The farmers are dying of hunger in the midst of plenty. It is more important for them to learn to restore the land and preserve fruit than to receive copies of The Iliad and The Odyssey. Why don’t we teach them to pick up the tejocote fruit that drop all over the ground and to use them? Why are other agricultural countries rich from their manufactured products? Remember the saying, ‘Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime’?”
“I believe I’m happier than you are, brother.”
“Of course, because you have no idea what I’ve seen.”
Diego’s star was on the rise. He could end up as the Minister of Finance and, if the country deserved it, president of the Republic.
“By the way, brother, the Secretary of State considers your optic laboratory project propitious, and I believe it’s time for you to pay him a visit to finalize a deal.”
“That’s great. I can go whenever you think is right, and this time I’ll try to be diplomatic.”
Diego embraced him. “You’d better!”
Curious, Chava, who was seated next to his old friend, said, “The world of science is foreign, difficult, and, to top it off, godless. No one follows you. Even if education is declared secular in Mexico, you scare away your audience.”
“You always said you were an atheist and a freethinker, and now you come out with that, Chava?”
“Women don’t tolerate my atheism. They want me to talk to them about God.”
“In bed?”
“You’d better believe it—in bed. Listen, Lencho, you are undoubtedly
an atheist with the vocation of a parish priest. Your sermons attempt to be the echo of the Holy Spirit, and they’re really only a pain in the ass and the consequence of a bad hangover.”
How frivolous Chava could be, and how opportunistic. And Diego too. As he left, Lorenzo swore to himself that he would never go back. But his affection for Diego made him return, always with the same result.
“Lorenzo, don’t you plan to marry?” Diego asked.
“Get thee behind me, Satan! You’re the only one I would tolerate such a question from.”
“It’s a normal question.”
“Personal questions are never normal.”
“What about Alejandra Moreno? Why not her? She’s bright. You can see from miles away that she likes you. She’s in your same field—education. Unlike you, she’s always in a good mood. You yourself have said that she lifts your spirits.”
Sometimes Lorenzo thought about Alejandra. He knew that she would marry him if he asked her. But attractive as she was, Alejandra was an activist and, not only that, a feminist. She was pictured in the papers wearing her Basque cap, revindicating women’s rights. She was fighting to legalize abortion; she participated in marches for the workers. Give me a break! he thought. His life with her would be a hotbed of slogans, a lair for activists of any cause. Oh, solitude, blessed solitude, beloved solitude.
Chava persisted with the topic of his youth. “You don’t look happy, brother. Do you know why? Because your way of life, your idea of the world, your erroneous ethics, your lifestyle—they all destroy your natural desire and your appetite for the things that bring happiness. If you continue with this cruel determination, you’re going to destroy yourself.”
“Oh, really? And what do you advise, empty-headed man?”
“Take a break from yourself. Your constant worrying is a form of fear.”
Over time, Lorenzo had found it impossible to retreat from his life in the country. He had at least ten good friends in Tonantzintla.
“I have a little one on the way, and we’d like, with all due respect, for you to be his godfather,” said Lucas Toxqui. “If it’s a boy, we want to name him after you: Tena.”
“But Tena is my last name.”
“That’s what we want to name him, Tena Toxqui.”
The women got pregnant, gave birth, and appeared in public again, their bellies pushing out in front of them. “I’ve put a bun in her oven,” Toxqui said proudly.
All these children confirmed Lorenzo’s conviction. I’m never going to have kids, he told himself, wondering in despair, What will become of them? The birth of a girl filled him with even more horror. This world is not for women. Maybe in fifty years. Maybe, but not now. Their path is set; we have to create another path that has more options than reproducing.
He watched the children go to the elementary school built by his initiative, and he wondered, What do they have ahead of them? What will their future be? But they prospered nevertheless.
Don Honorio Tecuatl had planted delphiniums, and they grew tall, and he took them to sell in Puebla. “Doctor, your being an astrologer must have increased the production, which is why I need a loan to transport all these flowers. A lot of them rot on me,” he said to Lorenzo one morning.
Lorenzo sighed in relief. For five years he had been running up against Don Honorio’s stubborn “That’s the way it is.” Now, finally, laughing at the evidence, the farmers were beginning to yield. Until then a terrifying fatalism had made them immovable. The volcanoes had them tied down. Lorenzo had wanted to strangle the priest who passed through every two weeks to say mass. He was someone who could influence, educate, at least inform them. But he never said anything, because he didn’t know anything. “It’s what the Lord orders; it’s God’s will; God chose for it to be that way.
One day when he heard the priest ask a poor woman, “What did you bring me?” Lorenzo lost his head and yelled, “What do you mean, what did you bring me? What are you going to give her, you disgraceful parasite? You’ve never even told your parishioners to buy red lights for their bicycles so they aren’t killed like bugs on the highway.”
The little priest didn’t learn the lesson. He didn’t protect his flock, and he abandoned the lost sheep. He didn’t warn them about the rivers of mud that flowed down from Popocatépetl, taking everything in their path. On the contrary, Lorenzo heard him speak calmly. “Once the mud reaches a gully, it stops, and that’s the end of it.” No wonder they all repeated, “That’s the way it is.” Enduring was their only form of survival. The priest also persisted with an almost biblical phrase: “The day that something truly happens, you’ll hear the bells.”
Now, after five years, Don Honorio had traded his inertia in for an enterprising spirit. And the others followed him because Don Honorio Tecuatl, with his strong jaw and his narrow forehead, was the leader of the group.
When Diego called Lorenzo at Tonantzintla to let him know about the appointment with the Finance Minister, Lorenzo was thrilled. He left for Mexico City immediately. Finally the optical lab project he had worked on for months would see light. In such a good mood, he stopped by to see Leticia after months of absence. When he said good-bye, his sister said, “I’m going to light a candle so that nothing goes wrong.”
At exactly five o’clock he appeared at the Ministry of Finance, and for the first time, it didn’t disgust him to be kept waiting for seven minutes. “The Minister is in a meeting, but he’ll be with you shortly.” But when he went in, the Minister’s wrinkled brow seemed like a bad omen.
“Listen, Dr. Tena, the president feels that there are other priorities at this moment, but we’ll examine your petition for the optical laboratory in Tonantzintla at a later date.”
“Petition? I never asked for anything.”
“Don Diego Beristain, whom we all respect, indicated that you were looking for funding for a laboratory.”
“Diego Beristain is very mistaken. He told me that you were interested in the laboratory. But we’ll put an end to this misunderstanding right here and now. Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary.” He headed for the door.
He immediately called Diego. “Why did you lead me to believe that the Ministry of Finance would go for it? I forbid you to stick your nose in my affairs ever again.”
With that, Lorenzo hung up the telephone. If this could happen with his best friend, what could he expect of these politicians, who didn’t have the vaguest idea what science meant to Mexico? One door after another had been slammed in Lorenzo’s face. “No, Doctor, there is no budget; the president is leaving on a tour.” “I’m very sorry, Doctor, but it doesn’t fit in with our priorities for public education right now; we’ve allocated all the funds to creating classrooms.” “Doctor, you’re internationally famous. Why don’t you appeal to the scientific institutions in Holland, Sweden, Norway, or Australia, which are much more solvent than we are?” “Doctor, let’s leave that chapter to the rich countries. We’re headed toward globalization. It won’t be long before we’re all one; we don’t have to spend money on our own science.”
That night, Lorenzo returned to Leticia’s house. From the expression on her brother’s face, she knew he had failed. “Come on, a tequila will do you good. The sons of bitches don’t deserve you, but if you’ll allow me, I’ll teach you how to fuck the shit out of them.”
“I’ll think about it on my way to Tonantzintla.”
The hours on the highway to Puebla didn’t weigh on him. The journey allowed him to think about what fascinated him the most—objects in the sky. The moment he left the last houses of Iz-tapalapa, he could lose himself in reflection. He drove the Ford to the rhythm of his thoughts, very slowly, then pressing the accelerator to the floor in such a way that the car, spurred on, would jump. When would they learn the distance of the galaxies? If the universe was expanding—in other words, if the concentrated matter at a point millions of years ago was expanding—and lines in the universe were not straight but curved, how could you calculate the distance, crossing through that space?
The trip to the observatory would relieve him from the bustle of appointments, pressures, and failures of the Federal District. It would get him back into the swing of studying the density of the universe over and over. Who would discover it? When would they discover it?
When he reached Huejotzingo, with its fragrance of apples, he had recovered the lost serenity and breathed calmly.
He passed through Puebla de los Angeles almost without noticing it and searched lovingly for the hill of Tonantzintla. He didn’t notice people, and he smiled deep down as he remembered Pablo Martinez del Rio, who, when questioned about his vocation for archaeology, explained that man had stopped being of interest to him ten thousand years before Christ.
The noise in Mexico City had been unbearable to him. In Tonantzintla all he heard were the bells, and from time to time the hair-raising squealing of a hog. The silence was complete. Not even planes flew overhead. Nothing scratched the air; the firmament was the property of the telescope. He almost hit a cyclist on the edge of the highway near Acatepec. Oh Lord! Why don’t they require bicycles to have lights? The truckers didn’t worry about their headlights either, and many parked on the side of the road to sleep, or maybe to fuck. Mexico, a country that didn’t take precautions.
He turned left and went up the small slope, which had been baptized with the name Annie J. Cannon, and he honked the horn. He wouldn’t find Luis Rivera Terrazas around at this time—another one whose company he really enjoyed. Surely the secretaries, Graciela and Guillermina González, would have retired to Puebla. Since Guarneros was taking his time opening the gate, Lorenzo honked again, impatiently, thinking, there are only crazy people at this observatory, including me. Damned Guarneros. Where is that handyman? When he was about to honk for the third time, he saw a girl in jeans run down the hill, hurriedly put the key in the padlock, take off the chain, and open the gates with a smile. Lorenzo drove through and yelled furiously, “You—who are you?”
“Fausta—Fausta Rosales.”
“Is that right? And what are you doing here, if I may ask?”
“I’m helping Guarneros.”
“Can you please tell me what you’re helping him with?”
“The garden. It’s a lot of work for him. I offered to help, and he accepted.”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Fausta, Doctor.”
“Fausta,” he yelled, raving. “A woman can’t be named Fausta!”
“That’s what my father named me,” the girl responded, now quite frightened.
“I’m going to fire Guarneros right now.” He got out of the automobile, took the chain and the padlock from her, and ordered, “Leave! I don’t want to see you here.”
She descended the rest of the slope toward the town without looking back. Lorenzo, beside himself, started the car and parked it in front of his bungalow. It had been a while since such a rage had come all the way up to his throat. He covered the entire grounds, calling, “Guarneros!” He circled the forty inches five or six times, as if possessed. He yelled again, “Guarneroooos!” But the handyman didn’t appear anywhere, and he finally returned to his bungalow to make himself a cup of tea, to see if there was anything in the refrigerator, and to take down the thick leather jacket he wore to observe at night.
For ten years Guarneros was the only employee who slept at the observatory. Aristarco Samuel lived in Cholula and didn’t come on moonless nights. Some afternoons Lorenzo invited his nocturnal companion to drink tea, and he would listen to the gardener’s monotone relate one family catastrophe after another: his paralytic mother, his sick wife and handicapped child, his miserable salary, his health that deteriorated each day. There were so many misfortunes that one night Lorenzo was surprised to find himself secretly following Guarneros: I’m going to do him a favor. If he goes by the water pool, I’ll push him in, and all his problems will be solved. When he realized what he’d been thinking, Lorenzo became terrified. It’s the solitude-I’m going crazy. Tomorrow I’ll go back to Mexico City first thing. He told this to Terrazas, who had a good laugh. “Don’t worry, Lencho, you’d never have killed him.”
When they both saw Guarneros come in with his soggy hat and his pruning shears, they looked into each others eyes, smiling. Guarneros didn’t return the smile. He didn’t have any reason to. “Doctor, the pump broke,” he said in an irritated voice.
“Okay. Don’t worry about it. Come on over here, Guarneros. I’m going to give you a shot of tequila.”
Lorenzo now confronted an enigma as inexplicable as the age of the universe. What the hell was that stupid girl doing with Guarneros? How had she approached him? At what time, on what day of what week had she spoken to him? What relationship could they have? It was unbelievable. First thing tomorrow, when the good Professor Terrazas arrived, he’d ask him what the devil was going on. While he, Lorenzo, was working his tail off in the city, they were frolicking around here, and now Guarneros was even hiring a woman. A brazen one, no less. And named Fausta!
The next day, Luis Terrazas tried to calm him down. “The girl is living in the village. Everyone here likes her. She’s very diligent and smart. You wouldn’t believe the intelligent questions she asks me. Her father was a medical doctor, but he died. I don’t know how many years ago. I gave her permission to go to the library, and I’ve found her lost in the Semat textbook a number of times.”
“But what is she doing here? What is she doing?”
“She’s the handyman’s assistant. She sweeps all over the place. She works much faster than Guarneros.”
“Where is that fool Guarneros?”
“He’s around. Don’t be in such a hurry. You’ll see him shortly.”
“And the girl?”
“Who knows about her?”
“Is she going to come back?”
“Don’t be contrary, Lencho! Didn’t you say you fire her?”
“Fired,” corrected Lorenzo angrily. “Fired, not fire. Yes, I fired her.”
“Well then, don’t ask about her.”
“I’m not asking.”
No one had seen Fausta that day, and Lorenzo had the unpleasant feeling that he had again gone too far. But then he saw her walking with Guarneros. At six that evening, from his window, he saw her struggling to put a sprinkler on the hose. He was about to go out and say, Not like that, but he stopped himself. When he looked up again, the sprinkler was spraying water, and there was no girl. Four days went by that way. Fausta stayed far away from the office, and Lorenzo had to go back to the odious Federal District without speaking to her. He didn’t want to be the one to go looking
for her, but he thought he might run into her at any time in one of the gardens or the library, to which, according to everyone, she was addicted. Fausta was careful not to come too close to the director’s space. “She can smell you.” Terrazas laughed. “She has your number.”