Jon Bilbao - Still the Same Man

Joanes took stock of the situation. At this rate, they’d take hours to get to Valladolid, where they’d still have to find accommodations for the professor and his wife. And then there was the telephone issue. The moment the wind picked up along the coast, the Federal Electricity Commission would cut the supply across the hurricane zone. They did this to prevent even more damage in the event the bad weather knocked down the overhead cables. The blackout could last for a number of days. Joanes estimated that they had about two or three hours left before the winds hit. He needed to get his phone charged before then.

“We can’t stay here,” the professor’s wife protested. “My back is in ruins.”

“Are you pretty sure it’s only forty miles to Valladolid?” Joanes asked the professor.

“It could be farther. But not much. What are you thinking?”

A few feet ahead of them there was a sign marking an exit in the direction of a town three miles away — Los Tigres. There was another sign fixed to the post with wire, a rectangle of plywood painted with the words the english residence. rooms for rent.

“What do you think?” asked Joanes.

“About staying there?” the others replied together, clearly alarmed.

He relayed to them what his wife had said about the accommodation problems in Valladolid. He told them that, at this stage in the game, even if they did accept them in some hotel, they’d have no choice but to sleep on a mat in a hallway.

On hearing this, the professor’s wife let out a groan.

“And what you’re suggesting as an alternative,” said the professor, “is to stay here, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the hurricane zone?”

“In Valladolid they expect the hurricane will barely have any effect at all. And we’re pretty close to Valladolid.”

The professor nodded, more to encourage Joanes to go on than as a sign of agreement.

“We can stay here the night,” Joanes went on, “until the hurricane’s past, or at least the worst of it. We’ll head off in the morning.”

The three of them looked at the makeshift sign.

“Who knows what it’ll be like,” said the professor.

“The English Residence,” Joanes read aloud. “The name bodes well, at least. And right now I’ll settle for any room that has a bed and four walls. And I imagine you both would, too.”

The professor turned to his wife.

“What do you think?”

“I’m exhausted.”

“Can’t you go on a little longer?”

“A little longer?” she asked. “A little longer? How long? Haven’t you heard a word of what he’s been saying? We might not even have anywhere to sleep in that other place you’re taking me, wherever it is.”

“OK, calm down,” he told his wife.

And turning back to Joanes, he said, “We don’t know if they have any rooms free.”

“If they don’t, we’ll ask for directions to Valladolid.”

Joanes’s grades ranged from good to excellent in all his subjects. His final undergraduate project was titled “Logical Data Modeling and Programmable Logic Controllers for Matrix Transfer and Injection Molding.” Thanks to one of his professors, his meticulous work fell into the hands of a company working with industrial automata, an English multinational called Robot Systems. He was invited to interview for the Spanish branch. When the day came, a company car picked him up at his house. An English engineer wearing a shirt that matched his blue eyes gave him a tour of the most impressive part of the facility, the area where they assembled the automata’s articulated arms. Finally, his guide asked him about his plans for the future and, just as Joanes had trusted would happen, asked if he would like to work there after graduation. He told him he’d be delighted, exactly as he’d practiced saying in the mirror the night before.

There was no contract or agreement of any kind, but Joanes and his wife, who by then were already a couple, celebrated as if there were. She had completed her studies in philosophy and begun giving classes as an assistant teacher in the same department, which she planned to stay in. The offer from Robot Systems tied up both of their futures. At that point they still hadn’t spoken about marriage, but they both knew they’d tie the knot sooner or later. Joanes let himself fantasize about how things might be in a couple of years. He hoped that by then he’d have already climbed up a few rungs of the ladder at Robot Systems and that he and his wife would have a couple of children. He thought, too, about buying his dad the handsome, thirty-three-foot yacht he’d been hankering after for years but had never made up his mind to buy.

Despite not having told his classmates, it didn’t take long for the news of his new contract to get around the university. Robot Systems was an important company, and Joanes was heartily congratulated. Of course, there was little more than envy behind lots of the kind words; Joanes knew this and couldn’t help but feel pleased with himself.

On graduation day, which took place in a soulless assembly hall with most of the light bulbs blown out and damp patches on the ceiling, he received a piece of mail with the School of Engineering letterhead on it. He guessed it was just some administrative notification, but when he tore open the envelope, he found a note written in fine, spiky handwriting. The professor had heard that Joanes would soon be starting work with Robot Systems, and he wanted to congratulate him in person and have a word with him. To that end, he invited Joanes to visit him at his home the following Saturday, at noon. He signed off with his address and requested punctuality.

The letter didn’t, however, request any kind of R.S.V.P. from Joanes; the professor took it for granted that he would come when called.

Joanes kept the invitation quiet. That way he wouldn’t have to answer any awkward questions when he came home. He memorized the address and threw the letter in the trash. You never knew quite what to expect from the professor.

He spent the days in the run-up to their Saturday meeting wracked with nerves and deliberating what to wear and whether he should bring a gift. He’d barely thought about the professor since passing his class. The curiosity he’d once inspired in Joanes had become buried under a sea of other day-to-day concerns and new relationships. But ever since the professor had sent him the note, he’d become a bag of nerves, jumping at the slightest touch.

He decided to see their get-together as an opportunity to talk about his studies, just like many meetings he’d had with other professors. Even so, his girlfriend noted how tense he was and asked him more than once if he was all right. He told her he was fine, but she didn’t believe him. The last time she asked, on Friday evening, he snapped at her. She’d walked out of the bar without even saying goodbye.

On Saturday, at two minutes to twelve, Joanes rang the doorbell of a large house near the waterfront. He’d dressed in slacks and a shirt he’d rolled up to his elbows to give the look a laid-back air. In the end, he’d decided not to take a gift.

An old lady dressed in housekeeping attire opened the door. He introduced himself, and she asked him to follow her. She led him through an elaborately decorated lounge out onto a balcony that overlooked the sea. On the way there, Joanes caught a glimpse of the stairs that led up to the second floor. Attached to the banister was a stair lift painted the same color as the walls in an obvious effort to have it blend in with the décor. Out on the balcony, on a wrought-iron table, there were two place settings for coffee, the cups placed upside down. The housekeeper asked him to wait there.

He passed the time looking out at the view. A bank of dunes and a beach divided the house from the sea. Gusts of wind whipped up the sand and sent plastic bags and bits of paper somersaulting through the air. The balcony floor was covered in a carpet of dirty-looking sand. A heavy, salty fog, cold and hostile, drifted in off the sea. Joanes thought that he’d rather take his coffee, or whatever it was they were going to offer him, inside.