Still the Same Man

Contents

Cover

COPYRIGHT

PART I Road

PART II Hotel

PART III Cabin

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Hispabooks Publishing, S. L.

Madrid, Spain

www.hispabooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing by the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Copyright © 2011 by Jon Bilbao

Published by special arrangement with The Ella Sher Literary Agency

Originally published in Spain as
Padres, hijos y primates
by Salto de Página, 2011

First published in English by Hispabooks, 2016

English translation copyright © by Sophie Hughes

Design © simonpates - www.patesy.com

ISBN 978-84-943658-3-6 (trade paperback)

ISBN 978-84-943658-4-3 (ebook)

Legal Deposit: M-30629-2015

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

The animals were hiding, or perhaps they sensed what was coming and had fled inland looking for refuge. Since arriving in Mexico, Joanes had only seen birds—raucous and all pervasive—and the large-footed geckos that loitered around the hotel swimming pool. Not one sign of the anacondas, jaguars, or monkeys that he’d hoped to find showing off for him from the tops of knotty branches.

Nor was the vegetation how he’d imagined it; by no means did the picture correspond to his idea of the jungle. There were no trees blocking the light of the sun, no vines, no orchids flowering from the crevices in the tree trunks. Instead, what he found was a thick, unvarying mass of vegetation covered in dust from the highway traffic and no more than fifteen or twenty feet in height—a tangle of stunted trees and creepers that looked more like overgrown weeds than tropical jungle.

He was driving south on the highway that stretches along the eastern coast of Yucatán and connects the towns along the Riviera Maya. With the window rolled down and his elbow resting on top of it, he divided his attention between the road and the sky. He studied the bank of clouds over to the east above the island of Cozumel, looking for any change in them, clouds identical to those he’d seen over the last few days—greenish at the bottom, innocuous-looking, and in no way suggestive of an advancing hurricane.

Two hours earlier, his father-in-law had pounded on the door to the room where Joanes, his wife, and his daughter were packing their suitcases.

“Let’s grab a sauna,” he said when Joanes opened the door. “We’ll loosen up a bit and forget all about this damn hurricane.”

It was more an order than an invitation. This was how his father-in-law asked for things.

“Do we have time?”

On the edge of the conversation, Joanes’s wife went on folding and putting away their clothes, and his father-in-law directed his comments exclusively to Joanes. He knew he was trapped.

“Sure we do!” his father-in-law burst out. His rotund figure, six feet in height and weighing two hundred and sixty pounds, filled the doorframe. “Let’s take a sauna. Then we’ll file onto those damn busses and get out of here.”

The busses were going to transfer the hotel guests to new lodgings in Valladolid, further inland on the peninsula, where they’d stay until the hurricane had passed.

“I still have to get my things together,” said Joanes.

But his father-in-law wasn’t going to let him get away. He answered as if he hadn’t heard him.

“Move your ass! I already greased the sauna guy’s palm. He’s scramming, too, and I had a hard time convincing him to heat up the sauna so late.”

The sauna was, in fact, a typical Mexican
temazcal
sweat lodge. Right next to the pool, there was a small, dome-shaped adobe construction that looked like an igloo or a bread oven. You entered by a door so tiny you had to crawl in on all fours, so tiny the father-in-law’s great carcass almost got stuck in it. From outside, Joanes spent a moment staring at that fat, tanned, waxed ass, only partially covered by its yellow Speedo, fighting its way through the door, then he averted his gaze. With considerable effort, huffing and puffing, pleas for help, and reproaches directed at the
temazcalero
who was inside preparing the fire, his father-in-law finally squeezed through the door.

Inside, the roof was little more than three feet high. Joanes and his father-in-law settled themselves as best they could on the bench skirting the circular wall. On the ground, the
temazcalero
stoked the wood fire before placing a few porous stones over the burning logs. Once they were well and truly piping, he poured an infusion of aromatic herbs over them, releasing an eruption of steam.

“You done?” asked Joanes’s father-in-law.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then leave us to it.”

“I’m supposed to control the steam, sir.”

“Forget about it. Leave us in private.”

“But it’s part of the custom,” insisted the
temazcalero
.

“So I have to pay you to take a hike, too, do I? Get out of here. I’ll tell you when we’re done.”

The
temazcalero
balked and then slipped out through the tiny door. Once they were alone, Joanes’s father-in-law smiled and placed a moist hand on his son-in-law’s shoulder.

“How’s all that going?”

Joanes, sweating and with his head bent and his elbows resting on his knees, looked up.

“How’s what going?”

“Your thing. The deal you’ve got going on.”

Joanes looked at him through the cloud of steam. He had absolutely no desire to answer.

“My daughter told me everything,” his father-in-law explained.

Joanes could guess what had happened. His father-in-law would have employed his usual interrogation strategy—a well-shaken cocktail of paternal concern, inquisitorial interest, petulance, and overbearingness. And she’d have been left no option but to sling the beast a hunk of meat to appease him. What with her father having supported them financially over the past several years, she had no choice. And what’s more, he had covered the cost of this trip, a trip that neither Joanes, his wife, nor their daughter had wanted to take.

Joanes’s father-in-law was a painter. His work was sufficiently well recognized that two of his paintings formed part of the Saatchi collection. Oil paintings in earthen tones were his forte; he plastered the canvas with ochre hues, reds and browns, uniformly colored areas, then played with the texture by mixing gravel and bits of bark and small twigs in with the paint. On top of all of this, he would fix a few small, felt squares and rectangles of black, gray, or white. The result, when you looked at it from far enough away, evoked aerial photographs of devastated or deserted landscapes where the rectangles looked like the outlines of edifices lost in the earthy immensity. The color of the felt cuttings, the number of them, and the way in which they were distributed on the canvas defined the different phases of his work.

Six months earlier, the celebrated painter and widower of ten years had surprised the family with the announcement of his sudden engagement to be married. He’d met a girl in the tanning salon where he went twice a week. She worked there. At the end of each session, she would go into the individual rooms with disinfectant spray and a roll of paper towels and clean the sun bed for the next customer. She was twenty years his junior, didn’t have a clue about painting, had a subscription to a personalized online horoscope site, and held a lifelong dream of getting married in Cancún with the turquoise blue of the Caribbean as a backdrop.

“What can you do,” his father-in-law had said, shrugging his shoulders. “The girl has a whim.”

A few days later, he’d called to let them know that they’d chosen a date for the wedding and that he’d reserved flights and hotel rooms for everyone. It was going to be an intimate affair. Immediate family only. He’d pay for everything. The wedding was set for the end of August, when it would be summer vacation for both his granddaughter and his daughter, who taught philosophy of science at a university. Last but not least, he took it as a given that his son-in-law could put any obligations to his floundering air conditioning business on hold for a few days.

The ceremony and subsequent reception had been a succession of kitsch scenes all teeth-grindingly tasteless for anyone with the slightest aesthetic sensibility. The pièce de résistance had been the arrival of the cake, which came down from the ceiling on a platform, accompanied by a carefully choreographed laser show.

The hurricane alert came that very night. The newlyweds had arranged for themselves and their guests to stay on in Cancún for a few days, but under the new circumstances had decided to change that plan. They hadn’t, however, counted on the crush of tourists, all of them desperate to fly out, sending the airport into a total meltdown. There’d been no way to move up their return flight.

Joanes wiped the sweat from his brow, putting off answering. His father-in-law seemed to have expanded in the heat, his butt cheeks spilling over the brick bench.

“We still haven’t signed the contract,” he said.

His father-in-law said nothing and waited for details.

“There are still a few points to clear up.”

“My daughter says that everything that needed to be cleared up already has been.”

“Not exactly.”

“What’s the problem?”

Joanes held in a sigh.

“It’s a complicated deal.”

“Lucrative, too, according to my daughter.”

Joanes nodded. A brief, understated gesture, barely visible in the pungent steam.

“I’d like you to be a little more specific,” his father-in-law asked.

“I’d prefer not to talk about it for now.”

“You think I don’t know that? But I’m concerned about the well-being of my daughter and granddaughter, so tell me something I want to hear.”

“You don’t need to be concerned about your daughter or granddaughter.”

“Don’t tell me what should or should not concern me, sonny.”

“So let it concern you all you want, just let me take care of them.”

The father-in-law leaned in toward him.

“Sonny,
you
can’t afford for
me
to not take care of them. When are you going to sign the contract?”

“It’s in their hands.”

“Soon?”

“Soon.”

“That’s more like it. Now, clarify ‘soon.’”

“Weeks. Or days. It might have already been wrapped up if I hadn’t had to come to your wedding.”

The father-in-law took this blow without so much as batting an eyelid.

“Weeks or days,” he said, chewing over the words. “Do you need me to throw you a bone till then? I can whip you up a couple of paintings. It won’t take me long. At this stage in the game, I can do them with my eyes closed.”

That was how his father-in-law helped them—with paintings that they then sold. He would show up at their house unannounced, rest the canvas ceremoniously against the back of the sofa, and wait for the family’s response, in particular that of his son-in-law. Expressing an opinion on modern art was, for Joanes, like having to speak in some unknown foreign language. His incomprehension couldn’t be blamed solely on his limited artistic knowledge, rather it was rooted in the very depths of his being. It didn’t help that all his father-in-law’s works looked the same to him, nor did his incredulity and irritation at the price fetched for a few depressing, monotonous paintings that crumbled away like the façade of an old building and left his sofa covered in gravel and spongy, paint-soaked wood chips. Under the delighted gaze of his father-in-law, Joanes did his best to say something that wouldn’t come across as altogether dumb and could also pass for a thank you.

“No problem,” his father-in-law would respond, patting him on the back. Then he would kiss his daughter and granddaughter and leave again, triumphant.

A few days later he would call to find out how much they’d sold the painting for, and without fail, no matter what the amount, he would find it insultingly low. Then he’d rant and rave, insisting he didn’t know why he bothered trying to help when they were determined to undersell his work, whose value they either failed to acknowledge or were incapable of appreciating. Finally, he would vow never to give them another painting.

Until a few months later, when he’d turn up at their house, a new canvas in hand.

“Thanks,” said Joanes, “but there’s no need.”

“You sure?”

Joanes nodded and looked away from his father-in-law, who now had torrents of sweat pouring from his shoulders and belly.

The sound of hurried steps and voices could be heard on the other side of the adobe wall. The hotel staff and guests were making their final preparations for the evacuation. The hurricane, named Gerald by the Miami Meteorology Service, was approaching Mexico, picking up energy from the mild Caribbean waters. If their predictions were right, the hurricane would hit the Yucatán peninsula near the island of Cozumel. By this point it would be a Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. It was expected that after hitting land, it would then shift northeast, sweeping the coastline before heading off into the Golf of Mexico. The Civil Guard declared an orange alert; the hurricane would reach land within the next 24 hours, by tomorrow afternoon.

“How are your girls?” his father-in-law asked. “Nervous?”

“More like mad because they can’t go home. And your wife?”

“She’s spent the afternoon glued to her computer, chatting with her astrologer. She thinks the hurricane is a bad omen for our marriage.”

Joanes refrained from commenting.

“I’ve spoken to the receptionist,” said the father-in-law. From what it looks like, this hotel they’re sending us to doesn’t exactly have rooms to spare. We’re going to have to share.”

“Who?”

“The five of us. Two double beds and a cot for the girl,” he added.

Joanes wiped more sweat from his face.

“It’ll only be for a few days,” he said, speaking more to himself than to his father-in-law, who guffawed then cleared his throat and spat on the stones that were topping the fire. His spittle evaporated into steam.

“I doubt it very much, sonny. The receptionist told me that the hotels along the coast are basically uninhabitable after a hurricane. And the last two times, the Cancún airport was out of service for quite a while. A whole bunch of tourists were trapped in the evacuation hotels for weeks. And they were the lucky guys. Others were forced to stay in schools, garages, warehouses . . .”

Joanes couldn’t listen to any more. He crawled outside without so much as a goodbye. His father-in-law asked him where in the hell he thought he was going and demanded he come back inside, but Joanes didn’t pay him any attention.

He stood leaning against the adobe dome. After the steam bath, even the suffocating air outside seemed cool. Inside the oven, his father-in-law, who couldn’t get through the tiny door by himself, shouted for help. Two maintenance men looked at Joanes. One of them asked if everything was all right, and he nodded. They were working next to the pool. The water had been drained to a third of its usual depth and sun loungers and other waterproof furniture had been tossed into it. It would all be better protected from the wind and the rain there than in any other place.