Swift as Desire (3 page)

“
¡H
OLA
J
UBIÁN
! H
OW 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?”

“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.”

T
HIS 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.

D
ANZÓN
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 assignment 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.