“Nobody is judging you, mamá. I’m just asking you …”
“Well, you have no right! That’s all I needed! Who do you think you are to come here to cross-examine me?! What gives you the moral authority to judge me?” “I already told you I didn’t come to judge you.” “Well, that’s not what it seems like, chiquita, and you’d better change that tone of voice. I am still your mother and you have to respect me! What is done is done! I have my reasons for everything I have done in my life. I don’t owe you any explanations. Who said you were my confessor? No one, you hear me, no one. If you are so curious about other people’s lives, why don’t you go and question your daughter! Ask her how many kisses her novio gave her yesterday, or where he touches her! I’d love to hear what she tells you! One has to respect the rights of others!
“Well, since you are so interested in knowing if I had another child, I’ll tell you. Yes, I did. And he died. And if you want to know how he died, ask your papá.…Are you happy now? Why didn’t you just ask me, instead of putting me on the spot like this? Why don’t you just go now, Ambar, because you’ve made me mad, and I don’t want to say anything that might hurt you. I have never, listen to me, never done anything with the intention of hurting you. I think I have been a good mother to you. I have given you my love, my care, my best. If I have made mistakes, they haven’t been serious ones. You should have had a bad mother, then you would have had something to really complain about. A mother who beat you up, or a drunk, or a murderer …”
I HAD HEARD ALL I wanted to hear. Curiously, I wasn’t surprised. Somehow I already knew. What I can’t help noticing is how my mother, whether she’s happy or angry, can never say my real name. They say it was my father who chose it, and it seems beautiful to me. He has always called me by my name, Lluvia, except when he sometimes lovingly calls me by the nickname Chipi-chipi, the word for a light kind of rain. But my mother chose to call me Ambar, which according to her is just the same, although to tell the truth, I don’t see the slightest connection. My mother says she doesn’t like to say the word lluvia because it reminds her of the time she and my father spent in Huichapan, when they were newlyweds and it rained all the time.… Oh, I just realized something interesting. When Reyes was teaching us Morse code, he gave us a basic lesson in the principles of electricity so we would better understand how the telegraph functioned. He explained very simply how electricity is the flow generated by friction between two different bodies, and about the materials that conduct electricity, and those that ground it. Water is a conductor, so lluvia, which means rain, is a conductor, but that doesn’t help me to communicate with my mother, because she won’t say the word! She always calls me Ambar, which means amber, a grounding material. Though mysteriously, my mother’s words, instead of grounding me by their friction, can sometimes produce electric shocks in my brain.
I must find the material that can truly ground her words, because otherwise I can never leave her house unharmed. But now I really need to get back to my father. By contrast, his words are pure alchemy to me. They have the prodigious quality of transforming darkness into light: just like electricity.
Chapter 8
IS IT RAINING, m’hijita?”
“Ha, ha. No, papi. I’m just hanging the photograph that Lolita brought you.”
“¡Ay, chiquita! How can you think that I would confuse hammering with the sound of rain? Now all I need to lose is my hearing.…”
Lluvia looked out the window and saw that it was in fact beginning to rain, but it was only a few drops, and they were falling silently.
“It is raining…how did you know?”
“Because I saw the raindrops.”
Lluvia laughed at her father’s words—she knew he was blind.
“No, really, how did you know?”
“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?”
“Sí.”
“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?”
JÚBILO 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. Júbilo 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 Júbilo had only just returned home, and in an embarrassing state at that. When Raúl was born, Júbilo 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. Júbilo 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 Júbilo had been out carousing. She had been so careful not to let them know the kind of life she and Júbilo had been living lately. What she hadn’t been able to hide from them was the fact that Júbilo 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 Júbilo. 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 Júbilo would understand and support her. But that’s not the way it turned out.
Júbilo’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 hell for Júbilo. 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 w
ife’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 bitch! He had dared to touch what was most sacred to Júbilo! He had put his dirty hands on Júbilo’s wife. HIS WIFE.
He had profaned Júbilo’s temple, his goddess, 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 Raúl to school, Júbilo 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 Júbilo 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 Raúl, the house grew silent and lonely. Júbilo 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, Júbilo could clearly hear the sound of the dining room clock from where he sat. Its ticktock flooded the house. Júbilo 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, Júbilo 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 Júbilo would imagine don Pedro’s twisted smile as he closed the door, and there was no way that he, Júbilo, could stop that man from so far away. Not being able to see or hear Lucha drove Júbilo 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. Júbilo 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 María. Júbilo’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 Júbilo, Lucha, Raúl, and singers Agustín Lara and Guty Cárdenas. When there was no electricity, the family disintegrated, and only Júbilo, Lucha, and Raúl remained. But when his wife and son were also absent, Júbilo 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 Júbilo 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.
Júbilo 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 nobody? Hadn’t they seen him roll down the stairs like a fat bundle? Júbilo 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! Doña Itzel had always had a clear and analytical 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.
Júbilo asked himself what doña 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 Júbilo was trying to pass 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.
Júbilo 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, Júbilo? 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 hell! 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 balls? 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 asshole! Get up and do something!”
But what could he do? Force Lucha to quit? First of all, she wa
sn’t a child who could just be told what to do, and, second, under the current circumstances 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 Compañía Mexicana de Aviación 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 Geología 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. Júbilo 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 Júbilo 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.