Jon Bilbao - Still the Same Man

“I’m sorry,” she said to Joanes. “I’m very sorry. I wish you didn’t have to see us in pieces like this, overcome with pain. I wish you didn’t have to share this room with us. We’re making things hard for you. You, who’ve been so kind to us. I’m sorry.”

And then the tears did come, and her sobbing prevented her from saying any more. Joanes was at the foot of the bed, ready to help in any way he could. He was waiting for the professor to console his wife, but instead the old man stood there, snorting through his nose.

“Don’t get all sentimental,” he told his wife. “If this man is so kind and generous, why hasn’t he let us use his phone to call our son?”

Her sobs stopped in a flash. Joanes looked at the professor, petrified.

“He has a telephone?” asked the woman.

“He sure does,” answered her husband.

The professor’s wife looked at Joanes, her eyes wide open and her jaw trembling.

“I’ve already told you that my phone ran out of battery,” replied Joanes.

“It’s not true,” said the professor. “And don’t insult me like that, lying to my face. Don’t you dare. Your telephone is still working.”

“He has a telephone?” repeated the woman.

“I just told you he does, are you deaf?” responded her husband, not looking at her, and his eyes locked on Joanes. “And now I’d like to know why he won’t let us use it, what critical motive is preventing him from lending it to us.”

“I’ll say it again — my phone is out of battery.”

“You know as well as I do that’s not true.”

The professor’s wife heaved herself across the sheets toward Joanes.

“Please. . I have to know how my son is.”

Joanes backed off, as if afraid of her touch.

“Please, I’m begging you. I have to know if he’s OK!”

The professor held his stony expression.

Joanes threw up his hands, trying to appease the situation.

“I need the phone,” he said, categorically.

“You need it,” said the professor.

“That’s right.”

“For what, may I ask?”

“I’m expecting a call.”

“From your family?”

“An important call.”

“Even though the system’s overloaded.”

“That’s right,” repeated Joanes, now less certain.

“Which is to say that your phone is still in working order. Perhaps because it’s a satellite phone?”

Joanes didn’t answer.

“What does that mean?” asked the woman, unnerved by the silence that followed. “What was that about the phone?”

“What it means,” explained the professor, “is that with this kind of phone, it makes no difference if the network’s overloaded. What it means is that the phone is perfectly usable.”

The professor’s wife immediately redoubled her pleading.

“There’s hardly any battery left at all,” said Joanes, remaining firm. “Just enough for one call. And I need it.”

The woman seemed not to have heard him. She begged, her face bathed in tears.

“Why is this call so important?” the professor demanded to know.

His calm tone was somehow far more unsettling than his wife’s supplications.

“Why haven’t you made the call already?”

“It’s not a call I have to make. It’s one I’m waiting for,” Joanes explained. “A professional matter.”

“Would you care to elaborate?” asked the professor. “I believe the situation calls for an explanation.”

“All you need to know is that it’s an important call for my business. If it weren’t the case, I’d have already lent you the phone, I assure you.”

“But. . my child!” implored the professor’s wife.

“I’m sorry,” said Joanes. “Maybe your husband will be able to get ahold of another phone. There are several people in the hotel that—”

“This professional call,” interrupted the professor, “it’s more important than a person’s life?”

“Forgive me, but, from what I’ve heard, your son’s life does not depend on you calling him. He’ll live or he’ll die, phone call or no.”

On hearing this, the professor’s wife buried her face in the pillow, and her entire body collapsed into great, sobbing heaves.

The professor was unmoved. Staring at Joanes, he said, “You cannot imagine what I can achieve with a simple phone call.”

Joanes took a deep breath, looked at his hands, and dried his palms on his pants. He contemplated the tiled floor for a second and said, “In that case, I’m very pleased for you. All you have to do is get ahold of a phone, and all your problems will be solved. But it won’t be mine.”

He got back down on the floor, leaning his back against the wall, and sat glaring into a corner of the room.

The professor looked at him in disgust and turned his attention to his wife. He rubbed her back and whispered soothing words — quite unconvincingly — in her ear. After a while she drew her face away from the pillow and muttered something. The professor put his face right up against hers in order to make out what she was saying. Then he said, “Of course,” and his wife buried her head back in the pillow.

The professor got to his feet and addressed Joanes.

“My wife would like to be alone for a moment, if you would be so kind. Given that you cannot lend us the telephone, perhaps the least you could do is grant us this small request. We’d like to have a moment alone.”

Joanes grabbed his backpack and reluctantly got to his feet.

Some candles stuck in jars were the only form of lighting in the living room. The hotel owner had a prime position among the many people in the room — a massage chair right in front of the television. Neither, however, was working. He spent a while fiddling with the dial on the portable radio, hoping to find a station without interference, but he gave up and switched it off.

“Saves the battery,” he said.

The living room was packed. As well as the people sitting on chairs and sofas, there were dozens of others on the floor. Joanes was among them. They’d provided seat cushions to make them more comfortable, but the room was boiling, and the cushions seemed to make it even hotter. There were two babies in a little playpen. At least one of them needed a change of diaper. A huge, sourfaced woman, who was in charge of the hotel storeroom, appeared carrying bottles of water whose seals were broken and took away the empty ones. Several of the Mexican guests were nibbling on strips of jerky. Another had a guitar in his arms; he didn’t play a single note, just held it against himself tightly. Various conversations were going on at once, and Joanes only joined in when someone addressed him directly.

It was already completely dark out, and raining. Every now and then the conversations fell quiet, and then you could hear the wind. It didn’t seem to Joanes to be blowing especially hard. He’d felt stronger gales. This one wasn’t making him feel particularly vulnerable. It wasn’t really clear why they were all there, cooped up in that hotel. He had to close his eyes and do some breathing exercises to suppress the urge to go outside, get into the car, and disappear.

Another silence, longer than the previous ones, made him open his eyes. The professor was standing by the door, looking at the scene before him with a look of revulsion on his face. He made a sign to Joanes.

“May we speak a minute?”

Joanes got up and walked out, all eyes in the room on him.

He followed the professor to the lobby. They were alone. The space was being used as a storage area for all the chairs and tables that had been out in the yard earlier. The professor took two chairs and placed them next to each other. He signaled at Joanes to take a seat.

“I think you and I ought to talk things through a bit more calmly.”