Swift as Desire Part 4

"It's simple, I heard them."

"You heard them? Wow! There's no way I could hear that. Maybe a gentle rain, but these little drops, never!"

"That's because you don't try. If you really try, you'll see that little by little you can hear more things. I started with the sounds of my own body, then those of my house, then those of my neighborhood, and so on, until I could hear the stars."

"Oh, right!"

"Seriously, Lluvia. I'm not joking."

"Let's see. Tell me what the North Star is saying right now."

"Right now?"

"Yes."

"Ah, well, I can't, because the noise of your hammering is interfering with our communication."

Lluvia and her father burst out laughing at the same time. She found it was getting more satisfying every day to communicate with her father through the telegraph. She had reached the point of mastering it so well that she no longer needed to use the computer to help her understand her father's messages.

"But to show you I'm not lying to you, let's do an experiment. Think of a question, and concentrate on the star as if it could really hear you. You will immediately receive the answer to your question. If you can't hear anything, I'll tell you the answer myself."

"Any question I want?"

"Si."

"I don't think I need to ask the North Star who my mother was expecting in this photograph, you could probably tell me yourself."

"In what photograph?"

"The one I'm hanging on the wall."

"It must be Ramiro, your brother."

"His name was Ramiro? What happened to him? Why didn't anyone ever mention him?"

"We didn't?"

JuBILO ARRIVED HOME JUST in time to hear his brother-in-law Juan announce that Lucha had given birth to a boy. Juan, the doctor in the family, had taken responsibility for delivering the baby. It had been a somewhat complicated labor, but fortunately everything turned out fine. Jubilo entered the bedroom and lay down next to his wife to kiss her hand. Lucha turned her head away from him. She was very angry with him and didn't want to look at him. It was four in the morning and Jubilo had only just returned home, and in an embarra.s.sing state at that. When Raul was born, Jubilo hadn't left Lucha's side for a minute, but this time she had had to go through labor alone. Well, it's true her mother and brother had been there, but that wasn't the same. Jubilo begged her forgiveness, but Lucha's only reply was a couple of tears rolling down her cheeks. What bothered her most was that her family knew that Jubilo had been out carousing. She had been so careful not to let them know the kind of life she and Jubilo had been living lately. What she hadn't been able to hide from them was the fact that Jubilo had been fired. That had become public knowledge. But Lucha herself had kept her job at the Telegraph Office, ostensibly thanks to the references she had used to get the position in the first place, but deep down she knew perfectly well the reason why don Pedro really wanted to keep her on as his secretary.

Alone in the office, Lucha felt defenseless and vulnerable. But that didn't mean she wanted to quit. She saw no need for it. There were only a few more weeks to go before she could take maternity leave and then she could stay home for three months, being paid her salary while enjoying her time at home with her children and Jubilo. They could then figure out the best way to work out their finances. She was willing to make that sacrifice for her family, and she hoped Jubilo would understand and support her. But that's not the way it turned out.

Jubilo's first impulse after the fight with don Pedro was for Lucha and him to hand in their resignations at the same time, but since Lucha refused, he felt he had no other choice than to stay in his job, to support her, take care of her, and protect her from don Pedro. But it wasn't long before he was fired.

These last few months had been h.e.l.l for Jubilo. His unfair dismissal had made him very angry. It had been an abuse of power. He was deeply hurt. Great damage had been done. He understood Lucha's wanting to keep her job a few more weeks before her maternity leave, but the situation was very hard for him to bear. His male pride was hurt by his wife's continuing to work...and to work with a sick man like don Pedro! He couldn't stop thinking about them being together. He was tormented by jealousy. He felt robbed, stripped of what he treasured most. As if someone had torn out a lung or sliced off his ears. No, it felt like he had been whipped until his skin was raw, or as if his brain had been filled with dry ice. He couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't think, everything bothered him, everything upset him. It was as if he had a flaming blowtorch inside him that constantly burned his skin from within. It didn't let him rest for a second. His mind was like a scratched record, playing over and over again in his mind an image that he just couldn't forget: don Pedro caressing Lucha's belly. That son of a b.i.t.c.h! He had dared to touch what was most sacred to Jubilo! He had put his dirty hands on Jubilo's wife. HIS WIFE.

He had profaned Jubilo's temple, his G.o.ddess, the love of his life. He knew perfectly well that Lucha was innocent, but he couldn't help being upset with her anyway. He couldn't understand how she could so blithely continue to go in to the office. He was furious with Lucha, with don Pedro, with the whole world, but he made an enormous effort to prevent his family from noticing it. He tried to act just as loving and happy as always, but everyone could tell he wasn't the same deep down, that instead of laughing, he was crying inside.

The first few days after he lost his job, when Lucha had gone to work and Raul to school, Jubilo would get back in bed, where he could still feel his beloved wife's warmth and smell her scent. To keep from going crazy he would try to think of anything but don Pedro. He tried to listen to Los Cancioneros del Sur, his favorite radio program on XEW, but he couldn't concentrate. Music, which had given him so much pleasure, now just disturbed him by reminding him of a Jubilo who had once dreamed of being a singer. So he preferred to turn off the radio and distract himself with other activities. Without Lucha and Raul, the house grew silent and lonely. Jubilo would slowly wander through it, then go out to buy the newspaper at the stand on the corner, returning to sit down in the sala to read it. Even though the sala was on the opposite side of the house from the dining room, Jubilo could clearly hear the sound of the dining room clock from where he sat. Its ticktock flooded the house. Jubilo couldn't help listening to every minute going by, imagining what was happening at that moment at the office. Every fifteen minutes the clock chimed a different melody and on the hour it struck loudly. As the clock struck nine, ten, or twelve, Jubilo could imagine the routine at the Telegraph Office with little effort. He knew precisely at what time Lucha would go to the bathroom, when Chucho would read the newspaper, when Reyes would get up for a cup of coffee, or when Lolita would powder her nose. The worst was when he began to think about what don Pedro was doing. His mind would immediately swell with the very thoughts he was trying to avoid, and his torment would begin all over again.

He would imagine don Pedro opening the door to his office and asking Lucha to come in for dictation. He would envision the way Lucha would rise from her seat, carrying her pregnant belly in front of her, and the lascivious look don Pedro would cast at her hips. Finally Jubilo would imagine don Pedro's twisted smile as he closed the door, and there was no way that he, Jubilo, could stop that man from so far away. Not being able to see or hear Lucha drove Jubilo crazy, and his impotence filled him with rage. Life couldn't have imposed a greater punishment on him than to have stuck him in a chair. He couldn't do anything. He was just a spectator. And worst of all, his jealousy prevented him from seeing reality clearly. A translucent gauze, like those used in shadow theater, hung in front of his eyes, distorting his vision and causing him to see enormous, terrifying, invincible monsters and phantoms. When all the time it was just the light on the other side of the screen that turned the shadow of an ordinary hand into a crocodile. Jubilo couldn't envision the day he would be able to take his place in the sun again. Or rid himself of his jealousy. Or bring la luz, the light, back into his life.

La luz! His Luz Maria. Jubilo's relationship with Lucha had changed his life in the same way that electricity had transformed the lives of all mankind.

The discovery of how to convert night into day was one of the greatest achievements of the century. It led to a series of appliances powered by electricity that would transform the way of life for city dwellers. The arrival of the radio brought new relatives into every Mexican family. For example, the Chi family was comprised of Jubilo, Lucha, Raul, and singers Agustin Lara and Guty Cardenas. When there was no electricity, the family disintegrated, and only Jubilo, Lucha, and Raul remained. But when his wife and son were also absent, Jubilo felt even worse. The silence and loneliness were unbearable.

But even being left alone wasn't the hardest thing for him to bear, nor that Lucha was continuing to work with don Pedro instead of showing her solidarity for her husband. What was most intolerable for him was that she did so pretending that nothing had happened, as if don Pedro had never caressed her breast, as if in response to such audacity Jubilo had never punched him, as if in punishing the blow don Pedro had never fired him and that now, unimpeded, he could dedicate himself full-time to offending her with his leering. It seemed reprehensible to him that Lucha was stubbornly pretending that things were normal. It turned her into an accomplice, an accessory to a crime.

Jubilo was distressed to see how his wife and all his telegraph operator friends kept quiet, putting up with all kinds of injustices just to keep their jobs. Was there really no other way of earning a living without losing one's dignity? Couldn't they see that without his money and his position don Pedro was a n.o.body? Hadn't they seen him roll down the stairs like a fat bundle? Jubilo couldn't understand their need to contort themselves, to crouch in fear, to resign themselves to being terrified by a corrupt and despicable man. Oh, how he missed his grandmother in moments like these! Dona Itzel had always had a clear and a.n.a.lytical mind and had been a tireless fighter for social justice. If she were alive now, surely she would already be organizing a revolt in the office to put everyone in his proper place.

Jubilo asked himself what dona Itzel would say if she knew how the progress she had so feared had insinuated itself into the very heart of every home. That there was a radio and a telephone in nearly every house now. That television had just been granted a patent and that people were ready to kill to acquire one of those devices that would allow them to see images broadcast from afar. Besides having proof that her fears had been justified and that progress was not as harmless as had been initially believed, his grandmother would have realized the danger of allowing the owner of a radio station to decide what its listeners should hear and the owner of a television station what its viewers should see. That this control of communication would lend itself to a self-interested management of information and, subsequently, of public opinion. Not that Jubilo was trying to pa.s.s himself off as a saint. After all, he had spent his life modifying messages, but he had done so with the sole intent of improving relationships between people. There were many people, on the other hand, who had dedicated their time and energy to linking populations that had previously been isolated from one another, with a clear economic purpose, believing that everything had a value and could be manipulated, exploited, corrupted, commercialized.

Jubilo could easily imagine what his grandmother would say. She would remove the cigarette from her mouth and speak frankly.

"What's the matter with you, Jubilo? How can you let a man like that, who doesn't care one bit about communication, stay in charge of the Telegraph Office? I die, and everything goes to h.e.l.l! How can it be that we fought a revolution to give you a better Mexico and now we rot underground while these opportunists benefit from our struggles? Why do you put up with this? Don't you have any b.a.l.l.s? How can you let a man like don Pedro, without any morals or scruples, be near Lucha while you're lamenting your fate on a park bench? Don't be an a.s.shole! Get up and do something!"

But what could he do? Force Lucha to quit? First of all, she wasn't a child who could just be told what to do, and, second, under the current circ.u.mstances he had no means to support her. If only he had studied to be a lawyer or a doctor like his brothers-in-law instead of a telegraph operator, he wouldn't be in this sad position. He felt like a failure. And to make matters worse, with the arrival of radio communication, the outlook for telegraph operators was rapidly growing bleaker. It wasn't so easy to find a new job. He was dying to get Lucha out of there, but he couldn't imagine how, or when. For the time being he had to accept that they needed Lucha's income, which made him feel even more useless. Fortunately, he still had his night job at the Compania Mexicana de Aviacion and that helped somewhat to alleviate his feeling of failure. Otherwise, he would be slitting his wrists.

Was there a place for him? Was a position waiting for him? Was this part of a cosmic design? In his beloved old neighborhood, everything was related in accordance with a natural, sacred order. The faithful went to church at the same time. The clock at the Museo de Geologia chimed the hour punctually. The bolillos, those delicious little rolls, came out of the oven of La Rosa bakery at seven every morning and at one in the afternoon, rain or shine. Dr. Atl took his regular walk. Housewives poured buckets of water on the sidewalks and swept them meticulously before their children left for school. The knife sharpener parked his bicycle on the same corner at the same time. Everyone followed a preestablished routine. Jubilo wondered how far one could go in breaking that order. How much could that routine be disrupted? How much was a simple mortal like him allowed to change the rhythm of events? Was his destiny already decided? Could he change it? The only things Jubilo knew how to do were communicate with people, and love Lucha. He didn't know how to do anything else, nor did he want to. As a child he had decided that what pleased him most in life was helping improve people's emotional states and their personal relationships. And, all modesty aside, he thought he did it very well. He was good at communicating, and at loving Lucha. From the first day he had set eyes on her, all he had wanted was to stay at her side forever and to have her be the last person he saw before he died. That was his desire. However, it seemed the forces of production, industry, and technology were in frank disagreement with his plans.

For the second time in his life, he felt disoriented, frustrated, and disconnected. And, coincidentally, don Pedro was somehow involved in his life again. Jubilo was so furious with him that if don Pedro were standing there in front of him, he would beat him until he wore himself out; he would kick him in the b.a.l.l.s until they were rendered useless; he would throw boiling oil into his eyes so he could never again dare to leer at his wife or any other woman. And his hands! Those hands that had had the audacity to touch Lucha, those hands that had robbed poor peasants, that had killed innocent people, that had signed his letter of dismissal. How he would love to lacerate those hands with tiny paper cuts and then pour lime and chile juice on them, so he wouldn't even be able to pleasure himself. Surely that pig don Pedro was masturbating at that very moment, thinking about Lucha's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Jubilo knew for certain that when don Pedro had brushed against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, he had been dying to caress them, to free them from her bra.s.siere and to touch them with his mouth. How could Jubilo not know that!

The day Lucha had taken his hand in her parents' sala and put it on her breast as an open invitation to caress her, he had almost died of a heart attack. The first time is always an unforgettable experience, and it was still very alive in Jubilo's memory, but the softness and firmness of her adolescent breast was no match for their roundness and volume now that she was pregnant. Each day he caressed her with greater pleasure. He considered himself so fortunate to have discovered love in Lucha's arms. With her, he had learned how to kiss, to caress, to lick, to penetrate. Together they had discovered the best ways to give each other pleasure. For Jubilo, his hand was his most important s.e.xual organ. With his hand he could give and receive pleasure on a grand scale. With his p.e.n.i.s he was limited to caressing the inside of Lucha's v.a.g.i.n.a, but with his hand he could caress Lucha's entire body. Jubilo had carefully mapped out his wife's erogenous zones. He knew exactly where and how to slide his fingers and the palm of his hand. He had cataloged her points of greatest sensitivity, among which her b.r.e.a.s.t.s figured predominantly. Jubilo knew which of her nipples was the more sensitive, how to caress it without causing pain, how long he could suck on it and bite it without injuring her delicate skin.

All of a sudden, he felt a blow to his head. A ball had fallen from the sky and startled him. The laughter of a few small children playing in the park interrupted his musing. Smiling, Jubilo returned the ball to them. Suddenly he felt guilty about sitting in the park at that hour instead of working, and then even more so about thinking of Lucha's nipples in front of these innocent children. He tried to concentrate for a moment on the crossword puzzle he'd been working on, in order to look as if he were doing something, instead of gazing at his navel. Because people are usually judged by what they do and valued by how much they earn, he didn't want anyone to think he was a b.u.m. Now, from any point of view, he felt like a n.o.body.

A dirty man tottered over and sat down on the bench next to Jubilo, forcing him to stop what he was doing. It was Chueco Lopez. He was terribly hungover. It took him a while to recognize Jubilo, but when he did, he embraced him and cried on his shoulder. He called him his "soul brother" and invited him for a drink at the cantina. Jubilo wasn't too excited about spending time with Chueco, but since he had nothing better to do, he accepted the invitation. It was obvious that Chueco Lopez didn't have any money, so it was Jubilo who ended up paying for the drinks, but he didn't care one bit, because he discovered that the alcohol anesthetized him wonderfully. For a good while he didn't feel any pain at all. He laughed as he hadn't for days. He forgot all about Lucha and her nipples, don Pedro and his greedy hands, the fact that he was semi-unemployed.

Suffice it to say that Jubilo became a devoted client of the bar from that day on. After a few drinks he saw life differently. He could tell jokes, be funny, raise a laugh out of the rest of the drunks.

Jubilo's life rapidly changed. He stopped obsessively looking for work. He felt useful in the cantina. He quickly became the confidant of several drunks and knew he had found the ideal place to spend his mornings. After taking Raul to school, he would immediately head for the bar. There, he always found someone to play dominoes with, to exchange jokes with, to toast women with. He started smoking more, up to three packs a day now. He would leave the cantina when he heard the clock at the Museo de Geologia strike the hour, to pick up his son from school. He would take him to his grandparents' house, and from there he would take the bus to the airport and arrive in time for his job as a radio telegraph operator. He would arrive smelling of alcohol and cigarettes, in a foul mood. When he finished his shift, he would return home and get into bed with Lucha. Hugging her body and with his hand on her pregnant belly, where he could feel the beating of his future child's heart, everything made sense.

Little by little his routine began to vary. It began when, instead of waking up, showering, and getting ready to go to the cantina, he decided he preferred to stay in bed. Then he decided he didn't want to shave anymore. Until the day he decided he didn't want to go to work at the Compania Mexicana de Aviacion.

Any modern psychoa.n.a.lyst would have diagnosed a severe depression, but since Lucha wasn't one, she exploded. She couldn't put up with any more. All this time she had been pretending that nothing was wrong, but everything was wrong! She had to go to the office every day and fend off don Pedro's flirting firmly but kindly, so as not to anger him. She had to put up with the stench of alcohol emanating from Jubilo's body, even though it made her nauseous just to be near him. She had to eat, even though she wasn't hungry, because she was carrying a child inside her. A child who hadn't done any wrong. A child that Lucha prayed to G.o.d would be born healthy and spared from having felt don Pedro's hand caressing it. She had to swallow all of these intimate thoughts. She had to come home tired from work to make the bed, wash the dishes, cook dinner for Raul, and play with him for a while before he went to bed. She had to hold back the urge to chastise Jubilo for not helping her with the housework, because she knew what a difficult time he was going through. But she couldn't put up with it any longer! If Jubilo thought it was easy for her to keep her mouth shut, he was wrong. It was unbearable to keep quiet in the face of such unfairness. The growing distance between her and her husband was unbearable. She missed making love like they used to do, but now they couldn't even do it at all. She was about to give birth. And on top of all that, now Jubilo didn't want to go to work. How convenient!

They argued for a long time, during which Lucha released all of her anger, which was so powerful that it was much more helpful than a session of psychoa.n.a.lysis. The next day, Jubilo did go back to work, but not before going to the cantina first to drink himself to the gills. Lucha, completely exasperated, realized she could no longer count on Jubilo, that she was on her own. Fortunately, her long-awaited maternity leave finally arrived. Lucha said good-bye to her job and as soon as she did, the problems between Jubilo and her diminished considerably.

Jubilo's anguish vanished when he could see, hear, and touch his wife. With Lucha's presence in the house, everything went back to normal. Of course, Jubilo preferred to be with her instead of at the cantina. He had a wonderful time with his wife. They went to the market together, cooked together, took baths together, picked up Raul together, and ate together as a family before Jubilo left for his shift at the airport. Suddenly, his dismissal from the Telegraph Office was converted into something positive. Thanks to Jubilo's having his mornings free, Lucha and he were able to enjoy a relationship worthy of novios. That's not to say they were lovers, because Lucha's bulky stomach was in no condition for that sort of activity, but their relationship was filled with more love than ever. They felt reunited and were very happy, in spite of the fact that Jubilo had still not found a new day job.

Jubilo almost managed to forget about don Pedro. His name wasn't mentioned in the house. Maybe that's why Jubilo became so angry the day a telephone call brought him back into their lives. Jubilo had gone out to buy tortillas and was on his way to the kitchen with them. As he pa.s.sed the bedroom, he saw Lucha sitting on the bed, talking on the telephone. She was tense. Not to appear indiscreet, Jubilo walked on, but kept an ear on the conversation, as much as his hearing allowed. Jubilo finished setting the table while Raul washed his hands, and when Lucha appeared in the dining room, he knew it was don Pedro who had called. There had been something in his wife's tone of voice that told him. Feigning nonchalance, he asked: "Who was that?"

"Don Pedro."

"What did he want?"

"Nothing. He just wanted to know how I was, and if we had decided who was going to be the baby's G.o.dfather."

"And what did you tell him? He doesn't think he's going to be the baby's G.o.dfather?"

"It looks as if he does ..."

"I hope you told him he can't be the baby's G.o.dfather."

"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 b.i.t.c.h. How can he even think of such a thing?!"

"Calm down, mi amor. Raul 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, Jubilo, 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, mama?"

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

THE 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 Jubilo had ever faced in his life. Jubilo 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 Raul everything had been much easier. Jubilo 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 Jubilo'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 Raul. Jubilo 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 Jubilo 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, Jubilo 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 Jubilo could understand what it was.

Finally, after studying his son's response to different stimuli, a light went on, and Jubilo 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. Jubilo was holding Ramiro. The child was completely content until Jubilo decided to join Juan in a toast with a gla.s.s 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, Jubilo 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, Jubilo 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 Jubilo to leave for the airport, both Raul 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.

JuBILO'S WORK FOR THE Compania Mexicana de Aviacion 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, Jubilo 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 Jubilo attempted to reestablish contact with the pilot, but he was unable to. Shortly thereafter, the aircraft crashed and the pilot and many of the pa.s.sengers were killed. Jubilo was devastated by the tragedy. He felt guilty even though he knew he wasn't at fault. Sunspots had been responsible for the tragedy.

WHEN 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 Raul his breakfast. Jubilo 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 Raul had left and Ramiro was asleep, Jubilo 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 Jubilo 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 Jubilo 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.

INSTEAD OF FOLLOWING THEM into the Telegraph Office, Jubilo 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, Jubilo 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 Jubilo that it was her birthday, since he hadn't remembered, or at least he hadn't congratulated her yet.

It was true that Jubilo 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 Jubilo, 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 Jubilo 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. Jubilo'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 Jubilo'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 Jubilo, his wife was like the Enigma machine used by the Germans during World War II to send encoded messages.

During the war, the radio served as an essential strategic tool. It was used to send orders to the troops on the front lines, but the signals were easily intercepted by the enemy. All they needed was a radio tuned to the same frequency. The German army, in accordance with its rigid routines, sent out orders at the same time each day, and the Allies took advantage of this to intercept the signals and listen to their orders. To foil the Allies, the Germans invented a cryptographic machine, which changed one letter of the alphabet for another. One could use this modified typewriter to write normally, but as each letter was printed, it was subst.i.tuted by another letter, with the aid of twenty-six cylinders containing thousands of combinations. The only way to decipher an encrypted message without knowing the relevant code was by guessing the position of the rotors at the beginning of the message, which was practically impossible.

But thanks to the collaboration of a number of notable mathematicians, the Allies soon developed an apparatus similar to the German Enigma, making it possible to decode the German messages. However, it was difficult and demanding work. At first they had to be laboriously guided by the number of repet.i.tions of each particular letter, but then the Fish machine was invented, a teletype that coded and decoded messages much more swiftly. This process, which required so many hours of work, wasn't wasted. After the war ended, it served to help advance the development of the computer.

Jubilo's mind too was a sophisticated cryptographic machine, only it was out of order at the moment and was therefore making errors in interpreting signals. His wife's delight was because she was happy to see him, not because she had received a scarf as a gift. The difference was very significant, but he couldn't read it correctly. For the third time in his life, this had to do with active sunspots interfering with radio communication systems. Jubilo was suffering the catastrophic consequences of this phenomenon, in both his personal and his professional life. Luckily, Lucha's reaction to her husband's surprise visit was so enthusiastic that it overcame his jealousy. She covered him with kisses and hugged him, and used their closeness to remedy her husband's faulty memory.

"I knew you hadn't forgotten my birthday."

Jubilo realized his oversight immediately. How could he have forgotten something like that?! Since Lucha was thirteen years old they had always celebrated her birthday together, so although he was in no mood for celebration, he made an effort to put aside his jealousy and his problems to fete his wife as she deserved. He took her to dinner at Cafe Tacuba, and the meal turned out to be a powerful aphrodisiac. Cafe Tacuba was an integral part of their sentimental history. Among other things, Jubilo had asked Lucha to marry him there, and it was there that she had announced that he was going to be a father for a second time. Sitting at their regular table and being waited on by their usual waiter had a relaxing effect on Jubilo, and this helped him to recover his usual good mood. During dinner he was able to tell Lucha about his terrible experience the previous night, and he received from her all the support and understanding he expected and needed. As he held Lucha's hand, light flooded his brain and illuminated the darkest corners of his soul. Gradually, the loving energy between them began to build up, and they hurried through the rest of their dinner so they could go home, eager to give themselves up to the pleasures of love. Jubilo's birthday present to Lucha was the best night of lovemaking that she'd ever had in her life and that she would ever have. It was a magical night. They made love as they never had before. But from then on, events were fated to overtake them, events that would hurl them from heaven down to h.e.l.l, with extraordinary speed.

Lucha and Jubilo woke up aching but full of energy, despite having hardly slept all night. Lucha quickly dressed for work. She was careful, as always, to choose the least suggestive dress, in the hope that this would protect her most from her boss's indiscreet glances. She gave her husband a long kiss on the mouth and hurried off to work. Jubilo took charge of Raul and Ramiro.

Jubilo had now been awake for two full days and nights, one because of the airplane accident and the other because of their lovemaking. But the previous night had filled him with sufficient energy to overcome his exhaustion. He functioned much better at work than usual. His batteries were so highly charged that he didn't feel tired again until he opened the door of his home late that night. He expected to find Lucha at home, but, surprisingly, she wasn't there. Instead, he found his mother-in-law, who tried to explain as best she could that Lucha had called her from the office to tell her that she couldn't pick up the children: she had asked her mother to take them home, and to explain to her husband that she would be home late, because there was an emergency at the office.

This seemed very strange to Jubilo. As hard as he tried to imagine what kind of "emergency" could occur in a telegraph office, he couldn't think of any. He thanked his mother-in-law for looking after his children, and he swiftly took charge himself. After putting the children to bed, he lay down and turned on the radio. La Hora Azul had already started. Agustin Lara's voice filled the bedroom.

Sun of my life

Light of my eyes

Feel how my hands caress your smooth skin

My poor hands, broken wings

Crucified beneath your feet ...

It didn't take long for the image of Lucha lying crucified on their bed to appear in his mind's eye. Jubilo imagined her as she had been the previous night: burning, pa.s.sionate, madly in love. It excited him to remember Lucha's look of total ecstatic abandonment. What a woman he had!

Where could she be now? Why hadn't she called? He was really worried. Soon the telephone rang. It was Jubilo's mother-in-law. She was worried too. Her daughter had never done anything like this before. To calm her, Jubilo told her that Lucha had already come home and was breast-feeding Ramiro. With those words he was not only sincerely trying to ease his suegra's worry, but also trying to prevent her from calling again, because the ringing of the telephone made him even more nervous than he already was. He tried to listen to his radio program to clear his mind of negative thoughts and closed his eyes to concentrate even more.