Part 5 (1/2)
Tell me your roses bloomed for me
Give me the smile that gives me hope
Tell me I haven't lost you
Give me the tranquillity of your soul
Come, with the moon I will show you my cabana
Counting the hours of the night, I will wait
Know woman that my love for you is true
Know it, know it well ...
He couldn't stop thinking about Lucha. The music only served to remind him of the previous night, because these same songs had provided a musical background for their lovemaking. Lucha! Was she thinking of him too? Try as he could not to imagine anything bad, he failed. It seemed very suspicious that she hadn't been in touch. The only reason he could think of was that she'd been in an accident...or that don Pedro had invited her out with him. His nerves were on edge. To calm them he turned first to cigarettes and then, when they ran out, he moved on to alcohol. It was bad luck that just at that moment Ramiro woke up. It was time for him to eat, but his mother wasn't there to feed him. Jubilo tried to give him a bottle filled with cow's milk from the refrigerator. While it was warming up, he held the infant in his arms so that his crying wouldn't wake Raul. But as soon as Ramiro noticed the smell coming from his father's body, his crying escalated dramatically, and there was no way to quiet him.
Jubilo had to apply cologne, brush his teeth, suck on mints, and coo to his son for hours before he was able to make him fall asleep again. He put Ramiro in his crib and lay back down on the bed. The alcohol and acc.u.mulated exhaustion of two full days and nights without sleep took effect and Jubilo slept deeply for a few minutes. It wasn't long, but it was long enough for Ramiro to wake up again, pull the blanket that his father had covered him with over his face, and suffocate.
Jubilo awoke to Lucha's screams. She had just arrived home, and before lying down to sleep beside her husband, she had leaned over to kiss her baby, only to find he was dead. Through his confusion and Lucha's hysterical sobbing, Jubilo managed to ask: ”What happened?”
”Ramiro is dead!”
Jubilo just couldn't understand what was happening. He approached his wife, who was pounding her fists on the wall, and tried to hold her arms so she wouldn't injure herself. At first, Lucha let her husband hold her, but when she smelled alcohol on him, poorly disguised by the cologne, she pushed him away brusquely.
”Are you drunk? Is that why you didn't hear the baby?”
Lucha now aimed her fury at Jubilo and struck him without mercy. At first Jubilo offered no resistance, he felt he deserved it, and much more. He felt guilty. But then the guilt became so overwhelming that he lashed out at her savagely in return.
”What about you, where were you? Why didn't you hear your baby? Were you out whoring around?”
Lucha stopped crying. She couldn't believe what she had just heard. It wasn't possible that Jubilo had said such a thing to her, much less at a time like this. She moved away from him slowly and walked toward the bathroom. On the way she picked up Raul who, rubbing his eyes, had come looking for his parents. Lucha closed the bathroom door behind her and locked it. She didn't want to see Jubilo. She couldn't bring herself to explain to him that she had come home late because don Pedro had raped Lolita. That she had taken her friend to the doctor and hadn't left her side until she was able to calm her down a little and take her home. Lucha didn't have the strength to talk. She decided right then and there that she didn't have anything more to say to Jubilo.
THE DEATH OF HIS son was devastating for Jubilo. Failing to hear his own child was the worst thing he had ever done. He who considered himself specially gifted at being able to hear anything, from thunder to absolute silence, just couldn't grasp what had happened. He who had believed that there was no such thing as total silence had simply been deaf to the world for a few minutes. He who knew that no matter how quiet the air was, there were always hearts beating, planets spinning in the heavens, bodies breathing, plants growing; and all producing sounds, but he hadn't heard anything! He hadn't heard anything!
FROM A VERY YOUNG age, Jubilo had realized that not everyone could hear as he did, that there were whispers, buzzes, creaks that were imperceptible for most people, but which to him were penetrating noises. Even the sound of an insect walking was audible to Jubilo. When he was taken to play at the beach, he would say to his grandmother, ”Do you hear how the sand sings?” He was referring to the sound that the tiny grains of sand make as they are blown by the wind. To most people, that ”song” is only sometimes audible in large sand dunes, but never on a sandy beach. To Jubilo, however, the intonations produced by the sand were quite clear.
Without a doubt, Jubilo had an ear that was adapted for hearing shortwave frequencies that not even modern machines could pick up. That sensitivity had been a problem for him, since over the years the city had become filled with an overpowering noise, like that of a rumbling truck. The sound often bothered him, it filled his ears with whistling sounds that sometimes even gave him a headache. And after all that, what good had it done him? He hadn't heard his own child dying!
”PAPI, ARE YOU LISTENING...?”
”Maybe he can't hear you.”
”Did you give him a sedative?”
”No, I gave him an a.n.a.lgesic, because he complained of a pain in his stomach, then he fell asleep....”
”Papi, wake up, chiquito. Mama has come to see you....”
Don Jubilo opened his eyes immediately. He couldn't believe his ears. Lucha was there. His heart began to pound and his stomach trembled and started to hurt again. He had been waiting for this moment for so many years.
Lluvia was also taken by surprise. She had repeatedly asked her mother to visit her father but Lucha had stubbornly refused. It was a unique occasion that she had finally appeared at the house, and without notice. Lluvia couldn't remember her parents speaking to each other since the day she was married, thirty years earlier. For as long as she had been able to reason, she remembered the distance between her parents, they even slept in separate bedrooms. Once, Lluvia had asked her father why they hadn't divorced. He replied that in those days a man was never granted custody of the children and that he wouldn't have been able to bear being separated from them. To Lluvia this didn't sound like sufficient reason, but she hadn't insisted. Although it seemed odd, she had an inkling that her parents had maintained their strange relations.h.i.+p because of a loving force hidden beneath their apparent distance that continued to draw them together. Whatever the reason, she was thankful for the opportunity she'd had to enjoy her father's presence at home while she was growing up, although to strangers her parents' relations.h.i.+p had been a total mystery.
It was at her wedding that her parents had seen each other for the last time, and now it was in her house that they saw one another again, and Lluvia could only bless the occasion. As soon as she had explained to her mother how her father ”spoke” via the computer, Lluvia said to them: ”Well, I think you two have a lot to talk about.”
To which her mother replied: ”Yes, that's right.”
Before closing the door, Lluvia managed to hear her mother say to her father: ”I hate hating you, Jubilo.”
Chapter 9.
LUCHA ARRIVED A LITTLE late for work, but happier than ever and unaware that it was the last day of complete happiness she would ever have. From that day forward everything would change, but at that hour of the morning nothing seemed wrong. No, more than that, in Lucha's eyes the world shone even more brightly than usual and glowed warmly with a pinkish hue. She was totally in love with her husband even though they'd been married for ten years. She had never imagined that was possible. Much less that she would still be learning new ways of making love. Jubilo had turned out to be a wonderful s.e.xual partner.
The previous night they had discovered new positions that didn't even appear in the Kama Sutra. And through them she had experienced incredible multiple o.r.g.a.s.ms. A night like that was well worth ten years of financial hards.h.i.+p. None of the little problems Jubilo and Lucha had gone through in their marriage was able to diminish in any way their love for each other. Even Jubilo's recent inclination to drink didn't seem like an insurmountable obstacle. Lucha was fully aware it was temporary and that Jubilo relied on it only as a way to forget about his problems, since for a man like him it must be very difficult not to be able to support his family. Sometimes Lucha even felt guilty about being so demanding. She only hoped that it was clear to Jubilo she wasn't interested in money itself, but only in its power to help her provide her family with a decent life.
She wasn't the only one who was concerned. Lolita had told Lucha on several occasions that perhaps she was asking too much of Jubilo and criticized her for having so many aspirations. Lucha didn't take this the wrong way. She knew Lolita had said what she did out of love, that she was guided by her honesty and integrity. Lolita was a patient woman who didn't expect anything from life. She was always the first to get to the office and the last one to leave. She performed her work quietly. She never acted in an irresponsible or unconventional manner. She was discreet, prudent, timid, modest, and very, very proper. She was so eager to please others that she never made a comment that was out of place: she was driven by an overwhelming fear that people would stop liking her. When she was a young girl, her father had abandoned her and her mother, and she never wanted to be abandoned again. So to avoid it, she was ready to do anything for anybody, to the point of servility. However, her need to please only caused men to run away from her. She never had a novio and she always fell in love with men who couldn't love her back.
Lucha loved and respected Lolita very much even though she knew her friend was in love with Jubilo. Lucha didn't hold this against her. After all, Jubilo was the kindest and most loving person in the world. When the three of them were still working together, Lucha had always been pleased to see the looks Lolita threw at her husband from time to time. It never bothered her, just the opposite, it made her feel proud. Nor did she take it the wrong way when her dear friend defended Jubilo with sword drawn, or that Lolita seemed to be so worried about the situation Lucha and Jubilo found themselves in.
Lucha considered Lolita her confidante and she was grateful for her sincere concern. The only thing Lolita didn't seem to understand was Lucha's att.i.tude toward money. Lucha had received a very specific education from her parents about money and how to use it. She knew very well what money could buy and she didn't hesitate to spend it. That didn't mean she was a compulsive spender. She simply knew that money, among other things, was important for a sense of security. To feel one could live peacefully in a house that could withstand earthquakes, rain, and the cold. Her great preoccupation about having money to pay for a good school for her children stemmed from her belief that the better their education, the better they would be able to provide for their own families. That's why she had felt so vulnerable during the first months of her marriage to Jubilo. It was the first time she had been exposed to hards.h.i.+p, and it terrified her.
Fortunately, it hadn't taken her long to realize that she would never find a more worthy man than Jubilo, and that the way to stop worrying about money was to go out to work herself and help her husband support them. And since she had started working things had improved greatly. She felt that her marriage was more solid than ever and that Jubilo's emotional state would improve as soon as he found another job. And she was willing to help him all she could to make sure every centavo they earned was used properly.
Because of this, whenever Lucha bought anything, she liked it to be the best, and also the best value. She was of the firm belief that you get what you pay for. And she was very particular about the way things looked too. She believed that living in a clean, pleasant, harmonious environment raised the spirits. Lucha had a rare talent for spotting the best buys the moment she entered a shop. They never escaped her notice even when they were hidden among many other things. She always found the most beautiful dress, which unfortunately usually turned out to be the most expensive. But Lucha never wasted much time in hunting down bargains. According to her reasoning, it was much better to always buy the best, because cheaper things usually faded or shrank the first time they were washed.
When she went into a furniture store, it was the same. She was always drawn to the most expensive piece of furniture made with the highest-quality wood and the best finishes. She knew from experience that they would last the longest, just as she knew that the best drink was the least harmful to one's body. She had the same good eye for evaluating people. From the first moment she saw Jubilo she had appreciated his other virtues as much as his physical beauty. He was an intelligent, sensible man, possessed of a wonderful sense of humor, sensitive in his dealings with others, pa.s.sionate in bed, respectful, gentlemanly, in short, truly unique.
Lucha was amused by Jubilo's jealousy toward don Pedro. She could never have even looked at a person of such low social, spiritual, and physical standards. Don Pedro was the complete opposite of the light, harmony, and good taste radiated by Jubilo. Don Pedro was a swarthy, ugly, evil-looking, disgusting, disrespectful, immoral, vulgar opportunist, who didn't know what proper manners were, much less how to treat women and show them respect. She wasn't about to trade down. And don Pedro was out of his mind if he thought he could buy her with a stupid scarf. Lucha wasn't crazy enough to renounce Jubilo and her children for such an unworthy man. He was just a poor fool with money in his pocket. If money had been the only thing that mattered to her, she could have gotten it ages ago, and by the handful, from her boss. But that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted much more than that. She wanted to spend the rest of her days by Jubilo's side and to remain just as much in love with him as she was now, as she had been last night! She blushed as she remembered again what Jubilo and she had done in bed.
Her employer's presence in front of her desk brought her back to reality. Don Pedro was offended because Lucha had left the office the previous evening without even saying good-bye to him, even though she had been wearing the expensive scarf he had given her! What hurt him most was seeing the look of love she gave her husband. He had never inspired that kind of look on anyone's face, much less a woman like Lucha, and he was determined to do whatever it took to make that woman his: and to amortize the cost of the scarf. Women were all equally ungrateful, they only wanted men for their money, but he was going to teach them how to treat a man like him with respect. Tired of being brushed off by Lucha, he wasn't willing to wait any longer to get his hands on her. He was full of rage and planned to overcome her resistance to him any way he could. The cold, distant tone Lucha used in her dealings with him was extremely irritating. He had tried everything, but nothing worked with her. He had to change his strategy to persuade her to sleep with him. He had invested a lot of money in Lucha and now he intended to collect for all the flowers, the chocolates, and that d.a.m.ned scarf. He was fed up with feeling ignored and disdained.