Júbilo’s father had just begun telling a story he’d heard about General Pancho Villa and his corps of telegraph operators. It has been said that the importance Villa always gave to telecommunications was one of the key factors in his success as a military strategist. He was well aware that it was a powerful weapon and he was very adept at its use. An example of this was the unusual way he used the telegraph in his siege of Ciudad Juárez. Because of its strategic location, the border city was an important stronghold, and it was very well provisioned. Villa didn’t want to attack the city from the vulnerable position of the open desert, and he couldn’t cross the border for a better approach, so he decided to capture a coal train on its way from Chihuahua to Ciudad Juárez and use it as a kind of Trojan horse. He loaded his troops onto the train and when they reached the first station along the route, they seized the official telegraph operator and replaced him with Villa’s own head telegraph man, who sent a telegram to the federales saying: “Villa is pursuing us. What should we do?” Their answer was: “Return to Ciudad Juárez as fast as you can.” And that’s just what Villa’s men did. The coal train arrived in Ciudad Juárez at dawn. The federales allowed it to enter the city and by the time they realized that instead of coal the train was filled with armed men, it was too late. And Villa was able to take Ciudad Juárez with a minimum of bloodshed.
They say a good listener requires few words. All Júbilo needed to hear his father say was, “Without the help of his telegraph operator, General Villa would never have won!” In Júbilo’s mind, the image of the telegraph operator immediately grew to heroic proportions, that unknown soldier whose name no one even knew. If that man was admirable in his father’s eyes, then he wanted to be a telegraph operator, too! He wanted to stop having to compete with his eleven older siblings. They were many years ahead of him, and had done a lot more studying. If his brothers weren’t lawyers, they were doctors; if his sisters weren’t beautiful dancers, they were brilliant thinkers. All of them were loaded with virtues and could claim multiple talents and abilities. Júbilo somehow believed that his father preferred talking to his brothers and sisters than to him, that he liked their jokes better than his, that he valued their achievements over those of his youngest son.
Feeling ignored and wanting to stand out any way he could, he dreamed of being a hero in his father’s eyes, and what better way to achieve that than by becoming a telegraph operator? Júbilo knew he possessed a special gift for hearing and transmitting messages, so the work couldn’t be that hard. He yearned desperately to be a telegraph operator. What did one need to do to become one? Where did one study? For how long? The questions shot from his mouth like skillfully aimed bullets and the answers came back just as quickly. What excited him most was finding out that to be a telegraph operator, one had to learn Morse code, a mode of communication that very few people knew. Everything was looking great! Since only he would know what was said to him in the messages that he was to transmit, he would be able to translate them in his own way! He could already see himself appeasing lovers, arranging weddings, and ending all kinds of animosities. Without a doubt, he was going to become the best telegraph operator in the world. He felt it from the bottom of his heart. And the proof lay in the way he had repaired the relationship between his mother and his grandmother. Mastering Morse code couldn’t be any more complicated than that. Besides, he felt he possessed a gift. He knew perfectly well that his ability to “hear” people’s true feelings wasn’t shared by everyone. What Júbilo wasn’t then able to see, however, was that his greatest gift would, over the years, become his greatest misfortune, that being able to listen to unrepeatable secrets, wishes, and desires wasn’t as wonderful as it seemed, that being aware of what other people felt at every moment would come to cause him a lot of headaches, and huge disappointments in love. But in that early moment of laughter and happiness, who was going to tell Júbilo that life was difficult? Who could have warned him that he would end up lying in bed, in a near vegetable state and incapable of communicating with those around him? Who?
“¡HOLA JUBIÁN! HOW ARE YOU?”
“Well, I am …”
“Mi compadre, you look pretty good to me.”
“Well…I…can’t …”
“What’s the matter, do I look that bad?”
“No, don Chucho, what my father means is that he can’t see you, not that you look bad, you just didn’t let him finish.”
“I’m sorry, compadre. You speak a little slowly and I got ahead of myself.”
“That always causes problems. The other day Aurorita, his nurse, asked him if he wanted to go to the dining room to eat, and my father said yes, but first he wanted to go to the bathroom. So Aurorita helped him into his wheelchair, took him to the bathroom, helped him to his feet, and started to open his zipper. Then, slowly, my father said, ‘No…I just want…to wash my hands.…’ Aurorita laughed and said, ‘Ay, don Júbilo, then why did you let me open your zipper?’ And my father answered, ‘Well, because I thought you had good intentions!’”
“¡Ah, mi compadre! You haven’t changed, have you?”
“Ha…ha…No…why should I?”
“Listen, don Chucho. Was my father always such a joker?”
“Always…right, Jubián? He’s been like that ever since I met him.”
“And when was that?”
“Oh, I don’t even remember, I think your father was about nine and I was about six. He had just arrived from Progreso, I think, because the export company where your grandfather worked had closed down. But I can still see in my mind what he looked like the first time I saw him, newly arrived from the train station, standing there next to his suitcase. I remember noticing that he was wearing short pants, like a little sailor and, well, let me tell you! All the kids in the neighborhood started making fun of him. We asked him if he’d lost his ocean. And where the costume party was. You know, kid stuff.”
“And what did my father do?”
“Nothing. He just laughed along, and said, ‘There’s no costume party, but didn’t anybody tell you that I brought the ocean along with me?’ He pointed behind us. ‘Look, there comes a wave!’
“And like young fools, we all turned around to look, and your father just laughed. From that moment I liked him, and our friendship just grew. We lived on Calle Cedro; your papá lived in number fifty-six, and my family was across the street, so we spent our days together. We were never apart. And when my family moved to Calle Naranjo, Júbilo would come over as soon as he got home from school. We loved to play in the street; back then there was no danger of getting run over, because cars only came by every now and then, and buses, never! Life was very different then and the neighborhood was beautiful, but now, well, you can’t go out at night because you’ll get attacked. Like they did to me. I even had to go to the hospital. It’s so unsafe that the drugstore on the corner—remember it, Jubián?—well, now it has bars on the windows to prevent robberies. I remember when the González girls lived upstairs and at night your father and I would go to see if we could watch them undress when they went to bed. You’re listening to me, aren’t you, Jubián? I’m going to take advantage of the fact that you can’t talk back: I’m going to tell your daughter some stories, you’re not going to sock me, are you?”
“Ha, ha. I…wish…I…could.”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute! The only advantage I now have over you is that you can’t move, ’mano, otherwise …! Did you know that your papá had a great boxing arm?”
“No.”
“Man, was he good! One day he even landed a punch on Chueco López, a boxer from those days, who was after your mamá’s bones.”
“Really?”
“Sure. We had a party one evening, back when we lived on Calle Naranjo, and the three of us were out on the balcony. Chueco climbed up a pole just to see your mamá; your papá gets so mad he picks a fight with the guy, and wins!”
“But why was he so angry? Was he already dating my mother?”
&nb
sp; “No, not at all, I had just introduced them. No, according to Jubián the problem was that Chueco had shown your mamá disrespect, but the truth is I was there too, Jubián, and I never heard anything that sounded like an insult.…”
“He didn’t say it out loud…but…he thought it.…”
“Ha, ha, ha…Oh Jubián!”
“So, don Chucho, you introduced my parents?”
“Yes, and your father still hasn’t forgiven me. Right, compadre?”
“Noooo …”
“Ha, ha, ha…it’s time you forgave me, it was all your own fault after all. That night, instead of hitting Chueco, you should have gotten out of his way, so that he could have married Lucha instead and you’d be singing a different tune now.…”
“How could I…do that…? I liked the guy!”
“Ha, ha, poor Chueco López, he was a good guy. He taught me how to box. He was a great boxer, he even made it to the Arena México and the Arena Libertad. Because I was little, they used to pick on me at school, so I asked him to show me how to fight and he said yes. He had a punching bag and a boxing ring in his basement, where he gave me my first lessons. He told me the main thing in boxing is never to close your eyes, because that’s when they get you. That’s why I told Jubián, ‘Mira compadre, when Lucha hits you, don’t ever close your eyes,’ but he never listened to me.… Oh well, that’s life. Poor Chueco had a rough life too. He really liked to drink and he ended up as a jicarero in a bar, a pulquería. …”
“What’s a jicarero?”
“Someone who serves pulque, similar to tequila, from a jícara, or gourd. But that was in the old days—they don’t do it that way anymore. Everything’s changed.… Well, Chueco died, but we’re still hanging on…that’s why I try to get along as best I can while there’s still life in me. I go bowling now, I really like it. I go three times a week. My bowling friends are all over sixty but they’re still at it. There’s one guy who just turned ninety, he’s still bowling. And he’s good, too. Imagine that! To still be able to handle a ten-pound ball at his age! The bad thing is they have started to charge eighty pesos a game, which is pretty expensive for us, given our pensions, it’s just too much. But the good thing is that the other day, by chance, I was walking down Calle Sullivan and discovered a bowling alley above a shoe store. A man and a young girl were playing and I asked them if I could join in. They said the alley was set aside in the mornings for federal government retirees and I told them I was retired, but not from the federal government. They said it didn’t matter, I could still play there. They usually charge eighteen pesos a game, but they let us senior citizens play for nine pesos, and they throw in free coffee too. And since I’m in with the owner of the restaurant, she always gives me two or three cups, because I take her a box of chocolates every now and then, you know? So she treats me pretty well. I’ve been playing for about thirty years and though I’m not that good, I’m not that bad either, I’m okay, I can’t complain. My average score for a set of three games is between 150 and 160, even though sometimes I break out and get up into the five hundreds. A couple weeks ago I got 583 in three games! How do you like that, Jubián!? Jubián, have you stopped talking to me?”
“No, don Chucho, he just gets like that sometimes. He gets tired, or something, mostly when we talk about my mamá.”
“That’s a shame. Has she come to visit him?”
“No, she hasn’t wanted to.”
THIS LAST PART I say with some fear. Almost secretively. Aware of the way my father’s ears have been trained to listen to two conversations at once. His gaze seems lost in his memories, but I know perfectly well that is no impediment for him to be able to follow the course of our conversation as well. His long years of practice as a telegraph operator allow him to handle two and even three conversations simultaneously with startling ease.
And I really don’t want him to know my mother’s opinion of him and his illness. Although, on the other hand, he’s probably aware of her most recent thoughts, even though he hasn’t looked her in the eyes for more than fifteen years. I wonder what image of my mother will remain with him? The one from the day they said good-bye? Or the day they first saw each other? Perhaps the image of her that day on that balcony, awakening all sorts of illusions and desires in the men around her, all admiring her figure. And my mamá, what image of her husband has remained with her? Is she capable of imagining my father as sick as he is? In the afternoons, after watching her telenovelas, does she ever think of him? And if she does, what image comes to mind? Above all, I wonder if she is capable of imagining him smiling, as he did in the good old days, when they danced danzón in the Plaza de Veracruz, when the magnet of the north caused the tide to rise in the eyes of the sea.
Chapter 2
DANZÓN MUSIC FLOODED the Plaza de Veracruz. Graceful couples swept across the dance floor with swanlike elegance, their bodies radiating sensuality with every step. You could cut the voluptuousness in the air with a knife. One couple stood out from all the rest, the one comprised of Júbilo and his wife. Júbilo was wearing a white linen suit and Luz María, his wife, a crisp white organza dress. The whiteness of their clothes stood out against their tanned skin. They had spent a month going to the beach, daily, and it showed. The heat of the sun, trapped within their bodies, now escaped in waves of ardor, passion, and lust.
Luz María, affectionately called Lucha, swayed her hips gently, but with Júbilo’s heightened sensibilities, his hand amplified her movement and it washed over him like an effervescent wave, hot, joyful, dissolute, raising his body temperature. Accustomed to transmitting telegraph messages at an extraordinary speed, Júbilo’s fingers appeared to rest innocently on the small of his wife’s back, but they were far from inactive, they were constantly monitoring the movement, the fever, the desire hidden beneath her skin. Like voracious antennae, his fingertips captured the electric impulses from Lucha’s brain, as if her thought waves were sending the order to follow the rhythm of the music directly to him. Lucha didn’t need words to tell her husband how much she loved and desired him. Words travel as swiftly as desire, so it is possible to send a message of love without them. The only requirement for intercepting them is a sensitive receptor, and Júbilo certainly had that. He had been born with it buried deep within his heart. And with it he could decipher any number of messages originating from any other heart, regardless of whether the other person wanted to make them known or not. Júbilo had the ability to intercept these messages before they were converted into words. On many occasions, this gift had caused him problems, since people aren’t accustomed to expressing their true intentions. People hide their feelings from others, often behind pretty words, or silence them to avoid violating social conventions.
The discordance between desires and words causes all kinds of communication problems and gives rise to a double standard both in individuals and in nations, who say one thing, yet do another. Ordinary people, who generally guide themselves by words, become totally confused when someone else’s actions conflict with his statements. They feel out of control when they discover this contradiction, but curiously these same people prefer to be seduced rather than to feel deceived. They would more readily accept an outright lie than listen to Júbilo’s assertions about someone’s true intentions. It was normal for Júbilo to be called a liar when he spoke the truth.
Fortunately, at this particular moment, the electrical impulses coursing through his wife’s body required only a simple interpretation, since they were totally congruent with what she was thinking and coincided completely with Júbilo’s own desires. The way their bodies kept rhythm as they danced foretold the pleasure waiting for him later when they got home. The couple had only been married for six months and had done little more than explore, kiss, love one another in each of the small communities where Júbilo, as an itinerant telegraph operator, was sent to cover the vacations of the local operators. He was working in the beautiful city of Veracruz, and the amorous couple was grateful. Júbilo’s new assignme
nt seemed custom-made for them, particularly for Júbilo, who really needed a rest after the exhausting events of the previous months. Swimming in the ocean, walking on the salty sand, breathing in the smell of fish cooking, and lingering at the Café La Parroquia were the ideal revitalizing tonic for him, much more effective than the “Emulsión de Scott” that Lucha regularly dosed him with. And the sound of the seagulls, the handheld fans, and the breaking waves brought him great peace and took him back to the happy days of his childhood. Immersed in these familiar smells and sounds, he felt once again that life was pleasant and that he had no greater obligation than making love to his wife. Though, to be honest, he had to admit he couldn’t think of anything but sex, whether he was in Veracruz or in Timbuktu. Even at work.
As he sent telegraph messages, he invariably thought of the way his fingers would caress the intimate recesses of Lucha’s body. The way they would play with her clitoris and send her messages in Morse code, which, though she didn’t completely understand them, were sufficiently explicit for her to respond with frenzied passion. Júbilo’s mind simply couldn’t be completely diverted away from his work, but nor could his work be separated from his loving. He argued that this was because these two activities were intimately linked.
To begin with, both needed an electric current in order to function. The telegraph machines obtained it from power lines, but in small pueblos where there was no electricity, the telegraph still functioned thanks to glass cylinders about fifteen inches tall and about six inches in diameter, which were filled with chunks of sulfur and water. A copper coil with two contacts would be placed in the top of the jar: one was for the water and the other for the copper coil, one positive and the other negative. The jars worked like Volta batteries and grouped together they provided the necessary voltage. Júbilo’s theory was that the vagina functioned in a similar way, it contained fluid and was of an adequate size to produce, upon entering into contact with the male member (which could be compared to a sophisticated copper coil), a strong electrical current, just like a battery. The good, or bad, thing, depending upon how one looked at it, was that the battery only lasted a short while for Júbilo, and he regularly needed to plug himself back in to recharge his batteries. Lucha and he would rise early and make love, then Júbilo would go to work, send a few messages, and return to eat lunch. After eating, he would make love, then return to work. In the afternoon, he would transmit more messages, then go home again. In the evening, they would go out for a walk, have dinner, and before going to sleep they would make love again. Now that they were in Veracruz, the only variation in their routine was that they took time each day to go to the beach. But that was basically their entire life as newlyweds.