“Enough!” exclaimed the professor.
“What I’m trying to explain to you is that—”
The professor jumped out of his chair.
“There’s nothing you can explain to me!”
His face was red, and he clenched his fists as if about to punch his old student.
“OK,” said Joanes, getting to his feet. “Don’t get mad. I thought we were just talking, like colleagues.”
“Colleagues?” asked the professor. “Colleagues? You and I?”
“OK, OK. I’ve got it.”
“Be quiet! Not another word! Don’t make things worse than they already are.”
And muttering away, the professor exclaimed, “Idiot!”
Joanes swallowed hard.
“I won’t hold that one against you,” he said. “You’re having a difficult time and—”
“Don’t you dare patronize me! Who do you think you are?”
Joanes was looking for the words to answer when the professor’s wife piped up.
“You should see yourselves,” she said, rubbing her temples. “You’re behaving like morons. And worse still, you’re a pair of bores. Why don’t you talk about something else? You and your math,” she said to her husband. “You can never keep your cool when you talk about math.”
“We’re not talking about math exactly,” he retorted.
“Change the subject,” she requested.
Just then, the door to the room opened, and a soft light filtered in. The owner’s daughter looked at them with her customary poker face. She was holding a bottle with a candle sticking out of it. The room was almost pitch black. The storm had brought the evening on early.
“Don’t you know how to knock?” asked the professor.
“I did. You didn’t hear me,” said the girl.
“Sure you did,” said the professor. “Is that for us?”
The girl nodded and held out the candle. The professor got up to take it and left it on the table next to the bed.
“Thank you,” he said, not a hint of appreciation in his voice.
The girl backed out and closed the door without a sound.
Nobody moved or said a word for a moment, until the professor’s wife repeated, “Change the subject.”
“Don’t you speak to me like that!” responded the professor. “If I hadn’t listened to you when you wanted to stay on in Mexico, we’d be on our way to see our son already. It’s your fault we’re here!”
The woman’s face was illuminated by the candle next to the bed. On hearing these words, she put her hands over her face, but she neither uttered a word nor made a sound. Joanes guessed she was crying, but when she moved her hands away, her eyes were dry.
“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.