Jon Bilbao - Still the Same Man

Joanes knelt down and took her hand. With her eyes half closed, the chimpanzee looked at him and moved her lips as if she wanted to say something or give him a kiss. She seemed well advanced in age. Her forehead was bald, and the hair on her shoulders and back was gray, as were the hairs on her chin and the ends of her fingers. More than pain, her eyes — deep-set and wrinkly — revealed immense exhaustion.

The chimpanzee held Joanes’s hand to her chest, as if she wanted to feel him closer, and he didn’t resist. The animal held on to his hand as her breathing slowed. Not long after, she closed her eyes, and her head fell to one side.

Even so, Joanes didn’t let go of her. He remained still for a moment until he, too, closed his eyes and bowed his head. Holding on to the body of the chimpanzee, surrounded by that thickset jungle where nobody could see or hear him, he broke down in tears. He let the tears flood out, until his throat hurt from so much crying. In between sobs, he coughed, spluttered, and spat out curses and insults, many of them directed at himself.

Afterward, he slowly freed his hand from the chimp’s. He inspected the collar, hoping to find some sort of identification. There wasn’t any. The monkey had a bracelet on her right wrist, a little trinket made of pink and blue plastic beads. The kind of charm a little girl might wear.

He was wiping away his tears when the phone rang. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath before answering.

“Where are you?” asked his wife, clearly anxious. “The busses are here.”

“I’ve had a little accident.”

“Are you OK?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, it’s no big deal.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

“But you’re OK.”

“Absolutely.”

“And what about the evacuation?”

“You two go on ahead with your dad and the others.”

“And you?”

“I’m staying.”

There was a pause, then she said she didn’t understand.

“I’m staying,” he repeated. “I’ll catch up later. On my own. I’ll see you in Valladolid.”

“Today? You’ll come today?”

He told her no, that he’d spend the night in the hotel and leave the following morning, once he’d gotten some rest. Before his wife had a chance to object, he added that the wind wasn’t going to hit until the afternoon. If he set off at sunrise, he’d have more than enough time to get there.

“You should really think about this.”

“I told you, I’m staying.”

There was another pause, and then she said, “Fine. Just be careful.”

In the background, Joanes could hear his father-in-law grumbling away.

“What’s your dad’s problem now?”

“He wants to know what time you’re going to arrive.”

“Gee, it’s nice to hear he’s concerned about me for once.”

“Yes, well. I’ll call you tonight, from Valladolid.”

“Did you turn in my computer for the hotel staff to keep safe?”

“I was going to do it now.”

“Leave it in the room. Since I’m staying, I’ll use it to go over some things.”

“Is there some kind of problem?” she asked.

And lowering her voice, she added, “Is it work?”

“No. I just want to go over a couple of things, for my own peace of mind.”

“Are you sure you’re OK?”

“Of course! We’ll talk later, when things are calmer.”

He went back to the car to look for something he could dig a grave with. On opening the trunk, he realized why his father-in-law had been so concerned. His golf clubs were inside. Clearly, he’d wanted to put them in a safe place before leaving for the evacuation hotel, where, in order to speed up the relocation process, nobody was allowed to take any large pieces of luggage.

He picked the club used for getting out of sand bunkers. It had a smooth, iron head fashioned at a sharp angle, about forty degrees, to the shaft. He returned to the chimpanzee. In that same spot, he began to dig the grave, using the exorbitant golf club alternately as a shovel and a pick. The earth was spongy, damp, and perfumed, and bright black like caviar. But it was also intertwined with roots he had to work around or, if they were small, break up with his hands or by hitting them with the club. He spent hours digging a grave big and deep enough.

He carefully laid the body down, in a posture he deemed somewhat dignified. He used his hands to push the dirt back on top of it. He would have liked to cover the tomb with stones, so that no vermin could pull the body out. But there were no stones around other than bits of highway rubble, which were too small and, in some inexplicable way, didn’t seem appropriate. And so he called it a day.

Dragging the club along behind him, Joanes returned to the car. He was soaked in sweat and caked in dirt from head to toe, and his hands were covered in cuts and scrapes. He wanted to scream away his frustration and rage. He felt like pounding the car with the club, the car rented with his father-in-law’s money, the car with which he’d hit that poor animal. He wanted to dent the hood. To smash the windshield to smithereens.

Instead, he simply stood contemplating the club with contempt and let it slide through his fingers. It landed in among the plastic bottles, cigarette butts, and sun-bleached bits of paper that littered the shoulder of the highway.

The icy wind made their eyes water, and they had to hold on to their helmets to prevent them from flying off. They weaved in and out of the workers that were swarming all over the place on that floor, and Joanes and his host approached the security rail. Their position, pretty high up, and the air, clear now because of the wind, meant they could see far into the distance. The blue sea turned a tone darker beyond the line that skirted the coast, where the sea floor plummeted to far greater depths.

“What do you make of that?” asked his host, his voice deep and serene.

“Spectacular.”

“I happen to think so. Right there,” he said, pointing to the bare, concrete floor, “is where we’re putting one of the suites, and here,” he added, pointing to the empty space in front of them, “a floor-to-ceiling window. This view deserves nothing less.”

He emphasized his words with an imaginary stroke of the blue horizon .

“Those are going to be the apartment blocks.”

He was referring to three skeleton structures that had been built just a little farther up the coast, next to the site on which they were currently standing .

Joanes admired the panorama in silence. His tie flapped in the wind. Above him there was nothing but cyanotic blue sky. He hadn’t felt this good in ages. If everything went according to plan, he would also be handling the apartment blocks. But he stopped himself from thinking that far ahead. He needed to focus on the task at hand, an upcoming hotel with one hundred and fifteen rooms for which he’d be providing the air conditioning — one individual unit in each room, wiring, boilers, air conditioners, air quality control systems. .

“Do you think you can take care of it?” asked his host and potential client .

“Absolutely.”

“Pleased to hear it, because I can assure you that all this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

By the time he got back to the hotel, the buses had already been gone for hours. He entered the lobby carrying the golf clubs. The manager stopped him, clearly alarmed by his appearance and late arrival. Joanes calmed him down, assuring him that he was fine and promising he wouldn’t be staying to see the hurricane. Even so, he had to sign a disclaimer to the effect that he had declined to leave the hotel with his fellow guests.