Swift as Desire (22 page)

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.”

M
Y 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.
”