For the second time in his life, he felt disoriented, frustrated, and disconnected. And, coincidentally, don Pedro was somehow involved in his life again. Júbilo 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 balls 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 breasts. Júbilo knew for certain that when don Pedro had brushed against her breasts, he had been dying to caress them, to free them from her brassiere and to touch them with his mouth. How could Júbilo 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 Júbilo’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 Júbilo, his hand was his most important sexual organ. With his hand he could give and receive pleasure on a grand scale. With his penis he was limited to caressing the inside of Lucha’s vagina, but with his hand he could caress Lucha’s entire body. Júbilo 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 breasts figured predominantly. Júbilo 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, Júbilo 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 bum. Now, from any point of view, he felt like a nobody.
A dirty man tottered over and sat down on the bench next to Júbilo, forcing him to stop what he was doing. It was Chueco López. He was terribly hungover. It took him a while to recognize Júbilo, 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. Júbilo 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 López didn’t have any money, so it was Júbilo 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 Júbilo 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.
Júbilo’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 Raúl 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 Geología 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 Compañía Mexicana de Aviación.
Any modern psychoanalyst 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 Júbilo’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 God 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 Raúl, and play with him for a while before he went to bed. She had to hold back the urge to chastise Júbilo 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 Júbilo 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 Júbilo 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 psychoanalysis. The next day, Júbilo 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 Júbilo, 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 Júbilo and her diminished considerably.
Júbilo’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, Júbilo 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 Raúl together, and ate together as a family before Júbilo left for his shift at the airport. Suddenly, his dismissal from the Telegraph Office was converted into something positive. Thanks to Júbilo’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 Júbilo had still not found a new day job.
Júbilo almost managed to forget about don Pedro. His name wasn’t mentioned in the house. Maybe that’s why Júbilo became so angry the day a telephone call brought hi
m back into their lives. Júbilo had gone out to buy tortillas and was on his way to the kitchen with them. As he passed the bedroom, he saw Lucha sitting on the bed, talking on the telephone. She was tense. Not to appear indiscreet, Júbilo walked on, but kept an ear on the conversation, as much as his hearing allowed. Júbilo finished setting the table while Raúl 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 godfather.”
“And what did you tell him? He doesn’t think he’s going to be the baby’s godfather?”
“It looks as if he does …”
“I hope you told him he can’t be the baby’s godfather.”
“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 bitch. How can he even think of such a thing?!”
“Calm down, mi amor. Raúl 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, Júbilo, 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, mamá?”
Raúl’s worried face kept his parents from arguing further, but even he couldn’t prevent Júbilo 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 Júbilo had ever faced in his life. Júbilo 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 Raúl everything had been much easier. Júbilo 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 Júbilo’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 Raúl. Júbilo 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 Júbilo 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, Júbilo 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 Júbilo could understand what it was.
Finally, after studying his son’s response to different stimuli, a light went on, and Júbilo 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. Júbilo was holding Ramiro. The child was completely content until Júbilo decided to join Juan in a toast with a glass 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, Júbilo 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, Júbilo 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 Júbilo to leave for the airport, both Raúl 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.
JÚBILO’S WORK FOR THE Compañía Mexicana de Aviación 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, Júbilo 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 Júbilo attempted to reestablish contact with the pilot, but he was unable to. Shortly thereafter, the aircraft crashed and the pilot and many of the passengers were killed. Júbilo 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 Raúl his breakfast. Júbilo 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 Raúl had left and Ramiro was asleep, Júbilo 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 Júbilo 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 Júbilo 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, Júbilo 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, Júbilo 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 Júbilo that it was her birthday, since he hadn’t remembered, or at least he hadn’t congratulated her yet.