He was exhausted but stayed outside. He didn’t want to go back to the room while the professor and his wife were eating. He waited with his elbows resting on his knees and his chin on his fists, not paying any attention to the kids that circled around him, staring as if he were some weirdo.
He wondered what the professor and his wife might be up to. Perhaps they’d fallen asleep. After a little while, he told himself there was no reason to keep waiting; after all, the room was partly his, too. But just as he was about to get to his feet, he saw the professor coming out of the hotel. The don looked around, spotted Joanes, and walked straight over to him.
“Do you have a telephone? I need to make an urgent call to Egypt.”
Joanes stood up. He stared at him before answering.
“I’m sorry, my phone is out of battery. I used it up talking to my wife.”
The professor tutted.
“Well! That is very bad news indeed. You can’t imagine how bad.”
“I’m sorry,” repeated Joanes. “Can I ask why exactly you need to call Egypt?”
“My son’s been in an accident. He was deep sea diving in the Red Sea, and something went wrong. I don’t know the details.”
The professor pressed his lips closed, composing himself.
“It happened yesterday, but we didn’t find out until this morning. They called us at the hotel, just before we got on the bus.”
“Where were you staying?”
“In Cancún. We came to Mexico for a conference I had to give in Mexico City. That was last week. My wife insisted that we take a few days’ vacation in the Caribbean after ward.”
“Is your son very bad?” Joanes asked gingerly.
The professor shrugged with his palms facing up in a gesture of helplessness.
“I don’t know. I only had a second to talk to his partner, and the doctors still hadn’t said anything at that point. Later, from the bus, I was able to get through, but they couldn’t tell me anything other than that my son was under observation, no change. By the looks of things, we’ll just have to sit and wait.”
There was a pause, after which he added, “I have to find out how he is.”
“Of course,” muttered Joanes. “You say you tried to call from the bus; so you have a telephone, then.”
“I had one. But I lost it. There was. . how can I put it? There was a ruckus when they threw us off the bus, and I lost my phone. It must have fallen out of my pocket. I only realized after the bus had already driven off.”
“Seems like it’s been a rough day for you two.”
The professor agreed wordlessly.
“And it will continue to be for as long as we don’t know what’s happened to our son.”
“Perhaps someone could lend you a phone.”
The professor shook his head.
“I’ve asked several people. They say the electricity is cut and that if their battery runs out, they’ll have no way of recharging it. And no one knows how long it’ll take for the electricity supply to return, so everyone’s keeping their phones to themselves.”
“Perhaps with a little financial incentive. .”
“I’ve tried, but it’s no use. And the hotel doesn’t have a land line.”
“You could offer more.”
“They’ve told me not to ask again.”
And lowering his voice, the professor added, “Some of them got a bit aggressive. They say that the system’s overloaded and that even if I tried, I wouldn’t be able to get through and I’d just be wasting their battery.”
There was a pause before he added, “I don’t think these people have taken much of a shine to me. It’s a good thing we’re with you. Although it’s a shame your phone is no use.”
He said all this looking hard at Joanes, who averted his gaze and began staring at the weeds growing beyond the yard. The professor knew that expression well, it was the same one his students pulled when he threatened them with a question — a mixture of fear and shame.
“It’s a pity you didn’t ask to borrow my phone earlier, when you could have used it.”
“Yes, a pity. But I prefer to work my own problems out wherever possible.”
“Maybe the lines will come back later and someone will lend you their phone. My advice to you is to keep asking,” said Joanes.
“Yes, maybe,” was the professor’s laconic response.
“And now, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to go up to the room and get a little rest.”
“Of course. It’s your room, too. Give me a minute or two to see how my wife is. Then come up whenever you like.”
Joanes needed a minute to go over what had just happened. He unzipped his backpack and checked the phone battery again. It was nighttime in Spain. There was almost no chance he’d receive the call he was waiting for in the next several hours. But it could well come tomorrow. He had to save his battery.
As for the professor, he could use any old phone so long as it could make international calls. And there had to be a load of them in the hotel. As long as he used a bit of tact, someone would likely end up lending him one. If there was one thing Joanes was sure of, it was the professor’s powers of persuasion.
What’s more, he wasn’t absolutely convinced that it was an emergency. The professor knew only that his son had been in an accident. Not whether or not he was seriously injured. And in any case, even if he did manage to make contact with the hospital or whatever place his son was in, how would that change anything? It wouldn’t make his son any better. At most, the call might put the professor and his wife’s minds at rest — if the news was good. Joanes preferred not to think about what would happen if the opposite were the case, if the news didn’t bode well or was out and out bad. He couldn’t bring himself to imagine what it would be like to be locked up for hours, days even, with an elderly couple who’d just lost their son.
But for the time being, he went on reasoning with himself, making the call simply wasn’t an option, so they’d have to put up with the lack of information. He had brought them this far, at least. And arranged them a place to stay for the night. That was all he could do for the time being.
He defended his decision by telling himself that he truly needed the phone.
He tried to imagine what his wife and daughter would think if they were there. His wife would question his decision at first, but her practical side would take over and in the end she’d side with Joanes. His daughter would say that he was despicable, making her feelings absolutely clear to him. And yet, for better or for worse, neither of them was there.
He was snapped out of his thoughts by a sudden gust of wind, so strong it nearly knocked him to the ground. The trees rustled. and even the metal rods sticking out of the roof of the English Residence made a gentle clinking sound. The gust barely lasted a few seconds and was followed by a cool, blustery breeze that also disappeared a moment later. Joanes and the few Mexican guests that remained outside looked up to the clouds, clearly anxious; that had been no more than a taste of what was to come. Calm was restored to the yard, but this did little to reassure the people still out there, who began edging towards the hotel.
On the east coast of Yucatán, the wind had already begun to blow with some force. A salty rain would follow it — ocean water, picked up and dragged along by the hurricane, accompanied by gulfweed and corral and fish, some of which would still be alive, flapping around on roads and backyard patios, on the roofs of houses and in the jungle, among the dark roots of trees many miles inland.
Three months after his visit to the professor’s house, Joanes started working in a modestly sized company that made telephone cables. A year later, he and his girlfriend got married, and almost immediately after that, she became pregnant.