Swift as Desire (17 page)

“And what did you tell him? He doesn’t think
he’s
going to be the baby’s godfather?”

“It looks as if he does …”

“I hope you told him he can’t be the baby’s godfather.”

“I didn’t say it directly. I told him we hadn’t decided, that we were thinking about it and that I had to talk to you about it first.”

“This is ridiculous! I never imagined that he was such a son of a bitch. How can he even think of such a thing?!”

“Calm down,
mi amor.
Raúl will hear you.”

“Let him hear me! Lucha, why didn’t you just tell him no? Do you really want him to be our baby’s
compadre?!
”

“Of course not! I don’t want him near my baby at all, but I don’t want to be rude to him either.…”

“No, of course not! The gentleman deserves all our respect!”

“It’s not that, Júbilo, but I don’t see the point of antagonizing him, after all he is my boss, isn’t he? I have to go back to working with him in a few months and I want to be able to do that in peace.”

“You don’t have to rub it in, that you’re the only one working in this house!”

“Who’s rubbing it in? Don’t exaggerate!”

“What’s the matter,
mamá?
”

Raúl’s worried face kept his parents from arguing further, but even he couldn’t prevent Júbilo from leaving the house after dinner and failing to return until four o’clock in the morning, after the new baby had been born.

T
HE NEW MEMBER OF
the Chi family was as beautiful as he was shrill. He cried night and day, and soon proved to be the greatest challenge Júbilo had ever faced in his life. Júbilo could usually interpret any child’s cry with unbelievable accuracy, but he was totally unable to do so with his own son’s. Although he had great difficulty in deciphering Ramiro’s needs, he was without a doubt the only one who could calm the new member of the family. With Raúl everything had been much easier. Júbilo never had a doubt whether his older son was hungry or needed his diaper changed. But with Ramiro it was impossible for him to tell the difference. It was harder for him to understand his son’s cries than to decode a telegram in Russian. To get even an inkling of what Ramiro needed, they had to bear his cries for over thirty minutes. That may not seem like such a long time, but anyone who has heard a baby crying at full volume knows what we are talking about here.

The baby was driving Lucha crazy, so she was full of appreciation for Júbilo’s devotion and dedication to his son’s care. At first, she believed he was doing it as a way of redeeming himself and obtaining her forgiveness for not having been with her during her labor, but she soon understood that her husband’s interest in the baby was sincere, as was his desire to establish the same kind of relationship he enjoyed with Raúl. Júbilo sang to the child, held him, rocked him with genuine love, but most of the time the infant just cried tirelessly. Ramiro had arrived in this world without an instruction manual, and so Júbilo had to rely on his instincts and follow in the footsteps of his ancestors as a parent. To help him work out what to do and what not to do with the new baby, Júbilo was guided by the ancient practice of trial and error. While he was in the process of figuring it out, the Chi family began to dance to the rhythm of Ramiro’s song. The baby set the beat for the entire household. When Ramiro slept, everyone else took advantage of the opportunity to rest for a while, and when he woke, everyone had to get up. There was no way they could continue to sleep. The decibel level of his cries was unbearable and alarming, even provoking complaints from the neighbors. They came to ask whether the baby was eating well enough, or whether he was ill.

But no, the child appeared to be very healthy. He seemed to have no problem seeing or hearing. The sounds he made (you don’t say!?), his movements, and his reflexes all corresponded perfectly with the development
of a child his age. He urinated and defecated abundantly. There was nothing to indicate a physical imbalance. His problem lay elsewhere and not even Júbilo could understand what it was.

Finally, after studying his son’s response to different stimuli, a light went on, and Júbilo realized that his son was bothered by the smell of alcohol. This happy revelation emerged one Sunday afternoon when his brother-in-law Juan had come to visit. Júbilo was holding Ramiro. The child was completely content until Júbilo decided to join Juan in a toast with a glass of tequila, when suddenly Ramiro became infuriated, gesticulating wildly and trembling as if attacked by a monster. As if the infant knew alcohol was the reason behind his father’s failure to welcome him into the world, or feared it would separate them. Once this great discovery had been made, that the baby didn’t like the smell of alcohol, Júbilo stopped drinking completely and family life returned to normal for a time. Ramiro began to smile and was a delight to the family. These months went by so happily for everyone that when it was time for Lucha to return to work, they all resented it terribly. Fortunately, Júbilo was still working, semi-employed, so Lucha could go to work with confidence, knowing that her husband was at home taking care of Ramiro. In the afternoon, when it was time for Júbilo to leave for the airport, both Raúl and Ramiro would be dropped off at Lucha’s parents’ house until she picked them up on her way home from work. This new routine allowed the family to enjoy a period of peace.
Until the day a tragic incident was to transform their lives even more than Ramiro’s birth had.

J
ÚBILO’S WORK FOR THE
Compañía Mexicana de Aviación consisted of establishing communication with pilots via radio transmitters to give them weather information and instructions for taking off and landing, and, in turn, to receive information from the pilots about their flight paths.

One day, Júbilo was speaking with one of the pilots, with whom he had developed a close friendship, when the connection began to falter. The airplane had just taken off, and Júbilo attempted to reestablish contact with the pilot, but he was unable to. Shortly thereafter, the aircraft crashed and the pilot and many of the passengers were killed. Júbilo was devastated by the tragedy. He felt guilty even though he knew he wasn’t at fault. Sunspots had been responsible for the tragedy.

W
HEN HE ARRIVED HOME
that night, he found Lucha fast asleep. Although he was dying to talk to her about his terrible experience, he felt bad about waking her. He couldn’t sleep at all that night. The next morning he didn’t get a chance to talk to Lucha either. His wife had to bathe, get dressed, breast-feed Ramiro, and give Raúl his
breakfast. Júbilo needed to change his younger son’s diaper and soak the soiled one in a bucket, then wash the breakfast dishes. As hard as they both tried, they couldn’t find a moment to themselves. But when Lucha and Raúl had left and Ramiro was asleep, Júbilo had time to think about what had happened the previous night, and he became depressed. He called in sick. He couldn’t work in this condition. He needed to talk to someone, to unburden himself, but before he went to the cantina he wanted to wait a few hours, to ask one of his sisters-in-law to take care of the children that evening so that he could pick his wife up at work and take her out to dinner. His sister-in-law Leticia wasn’t at all surprised by the request. She knew it was Lucha’s birthday, and it seemed natural that Júbilo would want to celebrate it with his wife.

Lucha’s fellow office workers also knew it was her birthday, but they pretended not to remember so they could give her a surprise party at the end of the day. Don Pedro found his own way to honor her birthday. Early that morning he called Lucha into his office to ask her a special favor. He needed to purchase a gift for a special lady and since Lucha had always distinguished herself with her good taste in clothes, she was the perfect person to advise him. He asked her to accompany him during her break to the Palacio al Hierro to select the most appropriate present. It didn’t take Lucha very long to choose a silk scarf. It was far and away the finest and most elegant they had. Don Pedro asked the salesgirl to wrap it. The whole process didn’t take very long. They quickly
headed back to the office and along the way, as they were about to cross the street, don Pedro took Lucha’s arm. At that very instant Júbilo was turning the corner and so he happened to see the couple laughing and looking carefree. Don Pedro was carrying a wrapped gift adorned with a large red bow.

I
NSTEAD OF FOLLOWING THEM
into the Telegraph Office, Júbilo decided to turn around and calm down by walking a little. He didn’t want to make a scene in front of his friends. But it didn’t help, because when he arrived minutes later to pick up his wife, he found her trying on a scarf and saw the box he had just seen don Pedro carrying lying open on Lucha’s desk. His soul filled with rage. Feigning a calm he didn’t feel, Júbilo asked Lucha who had given her the scarf and she, so as not to anger him, said that it had been Lolita. She didn’t see any reason to tell him it was a gift from don Pedro, much less to remind Júbilo that it was her birthday, since he hadn’t remembered, or at least he hadn’t congratulated her yet.

It was true that Júbilo had completely forgotten about her birthday. Between his insomnia the night before and his feelings of guilt, of course he hadn’t remembered! On the other hand, even if he had been aware of it, all he would have done was to buy her some flowers rather than an expensive gift. He wasn’t in the habit of demonstrating his love that way. But don Pedro
was, and Lucha, who was so accustomed to receiving gifts on her birthday, couldn’t help feeling pleased when don Pedro had given her the gift she had unwittingly helped to select.

For Júbilo, this was the first sign that don Pedro had resumed wooing his wife, but what worried him most was that, this time, it seemed to please her. If not, then why was she trying to hide from him the fact that don Pedro had given her the scarf?

What Júbilo wasn’t able to see was that his wife’s happiness was due to his own arrival in the office rather than to receiving the scarf. Júbilo’s apparatus for receiving messages seemed to be damaged. His mind confused the codes. It mixed up the clues he received from the outside world and converted them into an indecipherable tangle. Usually Júbilo’s mind was very sharp, and he always understood why people said “I hate you” instead of “I love you” and vice versa. But now he kept misinterpreting the messages Lucha sent him. To Júbilo, his wife was like the Enigma machine used by the Germans during World War II to send encoded messages.