Still the Same Man

by Jon Bilbao

  “I need to get some air. Throw the rest of my things together, will you please?”

  And before leaving, he added, “I’ll be back in time.”

  A minute later, he was on the road.

  He was driving along a monotonous, straight stretch of road when his phone rang. Before answering he made a mental calculation of the time in Spain. Just after eleven at night.

  “We have to talk,” said a deep, male voice.

  It was the same voice that, over the last several months, had become as familiar to him as his wife and daughter’s. The voice seemed astonishingly close. He noted the graveness in it, which unnerved him. This wasn’t the time for graveness. Each and every point in the agreement had been clearly laid out, had been revised, reconsidered, re-written, and revised again.

  He felt his back tense up. He drove with one hand on the wheel and his eyes fixed on the horizon where all the highway lanes converged in a single vanishing point.

  “All right, let’s talk. Is there a problem?”

  The second the question slipped out, he regretted it, as if the mere mention of a problem were enough to invoke one.

  “There is, in fact,” said the voice. “Something’s come up.”

  “I thought everything had been agreed on.”

  “I mean someone has come up.”

  A long pause.

  “His price and conditions are pretty interesting. I’ve just received an offer.”

  Another pause.

  “You see, kid, I like your numbers, but I’d be lying if I said that these guys haven’t impressed me.”

  “Who’s the offer from?”

  “You know it would be wrong to tell you.”

  “And you know that I can find out without your help.”

  “So find out.”

  Another pause. Joanes took a deep breath.

  “What are they offering?” he asked.

  “I can’t tell you that, either.”

  “Oh, come on . . .”

  “More or less the same as you, but for a better price.”

  Joanes swore under his breath. He didn’t have any margin left for further discounts. If he lowered the price, he’d lose money.

  “Well then?” he said, gathering all the strength he could. “What happens now?”

  “You seem trustworthy, kid, you really do,” came the voice at the other end of the line, “but we’re going to have to review your offer.”

  “What do you want to review? There’s nothing to review. And anyhow, I’m in Mexico. They’re evacuating us because of the hurricane. You must have heard about it on the news.”

  The voice spoke again, and this time the graveness had an added dose of testiness to it—the last thing the man wanted to hear about were other people’s problems; he had more than enough of his own.

  “Listen up, our decision is now between your offer and the one I’ve just received. And, to be honest, the balance is tipping toward the latter. We want to settle the matter as soon as possible. We’re meeting tomorrow to make a decision.”

  “Who are you meeting with? I thought it was up to you.”

  “It’s never up to one person alone. Less still when there’s so much money in the mix.”

  “Well that’s the impression you’ve always given me.”

  “Wait for our call tomorrow,” said the voice, now curt. “We’ll let you know what we decide.”

  “Call me before the meeting,” Joanes said. “I’ll review my offer tonight. Improve it.”

  “In all honesty, I don’t think it’ll make any difference.”

  “You owe it to me.”

  “I don’t owe you a thing. Don’t be under any false illusions.”

  “You’ll call?”

  “I’m not promising.”

  “So then I’ll call you. I’ll find a way to drop the price.”

  “No. I’ll call you,” said the voice before hanging up.

  He switched on his emergency blinkers and pulled over to the shoulder, a ramshackle strip of road full of rubble and trash and barely a foot and a half wide, which was all the distance that existed between the road and the nearby undergrowth. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest. He thought about what would happen if his offer was rejected. It wasn’t just months of negotiations at stake but the entire future of his company.

  He stayed there for a long time, not caring that his family was waiting for him to go to the shelter. Double-trailer trucks and pickups filled with laborers drove past, just inches from the car. Not even their honking made him open his eyes.

  “Don’t panic,” he said out loud. “You’re going to work it out. Go back to the hotel.”

  And he repeated, “Don’t panic.”

  And again, “Don’t panic.”

  He checked to make sure there weren’t any vehicles approaching and made a U-turn, driving right over the median, when a figure appeared from the undergrowth and hurled itself onto the highway in front of the car. For a second he thought it was a kid, a black kid. It appeared at the edge his field of vision then stumbled onto the highway, walking strangely, swaying with its arms up in the air, as if trying to catch someone’s attention to get them to stop. But Joanes was too close, and the car was going too fast. The bumper hit the figure hard, slamming it forward and sending it rolling several yards over the asphalt.

  Joanes slammed on the brakes and looked in shock at the sorry figure. The fact that it was covered in hair did little to calm him down. It wasn’t a kid but a monkey.

  He got out of the car and walked toward it cautiously. It was a chimpanzee. He asked himself what in God’s name a chimpanzee was doing there. He thought they only existed in equatorial Africa. It began to sidle off, and Joanes stopped in his tracks.

  The monkey got to its feet slowly, threw a pained look at Joanes, and hobbled off the highway. It disappeared back into the thicket from which it had emerged.

  He had no idea what to do. A few vehicles drove by, but they didn’t pay him any attention. Nobody had witnessed the accident.

  He decided to go after the chimpanzee.

  He imagined it would leave some sort of trail—footprints, a path crushed through the vegetation or something—but as soon as he entered the undergrowth, it was impossible to make out anything. He went on anyhow, battling his way through the low branches and vines, changing tack every now and then and retracing his steps various times. He shooed away some iguanas resting among the roots of the trees; they moved off, making a crunching sound in the leaves. He only found the monkey because it hadn’t had the strength to get far. Joanes pushed aside a curtain of hanging vines and was suddenly face to face with it.

  It was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree and cradling the arm the car had hit. It was a female, and she was wearing a collar with a metal jump ring hanging off it. When she saw Joanes, she held out her other hand to him pitifully, opening and closing her fingers, entreating him to come closer. Her chest rose and fell in a painful motion. Joanes hesitated. He knew chimpanzees to be capable of a degree of ferocity totally at odds with their cuddly image. But this one didn’t seem to be in a state to hurt anyone, and the collar suggested that she was used to human company.

  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.”

  PART II

  Hotel

  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.

  His wife had gotten everything in order. The family’s luggage had been wrapped in the plastic bags provided by the hotel and placed on the highest shelves in the closet. She’d left his clothes for the following day on the bed. Despite his exhaustion, Joanes couldn’t help smiling at the little row of things neatly laid out—a change of underwear, a rain jacket, his passport, a road map, a small first-aid kit, a note giving the address and telephone number of the evacuation hotel, and a backpack to keep it all in.

  He dropped the golf clubs in a corner of the room and took a long shower. Afterward, he took one of the suitcases from the closet, removed the sticky tape on its bag, and pulled out some clean clothes.

  He ate dinner in the hotel r
estaurant. A sour-faced waiter in plain clothes served him. Save for Joanes, the place was empty, and with the best part of the furniture stowed away, it was pretty depressing.

  He was back in his room, working on his laptop, when the landline rang.

  “How are you?” his wife asked.

  Joanes threw himself onto the bed to talk. The TV was muted and tuned to a news channel.

  “I’m fine. What about you guys?”

  “Fine,” she answered wearily.

  “Sure?”

  “I’m fine now that I’ve finally gotten a moment to myself. The others are eating downstairs. They’ve given us a spot on the fourth canteen shift.”

  “You’re not eating?”

  “I’d rather talk to you. Tell me what happened.”

  He told her about hitting the chimpanzee.

  “What was a chimpanzee doing on the highway?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He told her how he’d looked for the dying animal in the undergrowth, and how he’s stayed with it until it died, and how afterward he’d felt the need to bury it. He didn’t tell her he’d cried.

  “That’s why you didn’t get back in time?”

  “That’s why, yeah.”

  “Nothing else has happened?”

  “No, nothing.”

  He didn’t see the point, for now, in telling her about the problems with the contract.

  She sighed.

  “You think I was wrong.”

  “What?”

  “Spending all that time burying it. Burying her, I should say. She was a female.”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it was the right thing to do. But I hope you’ll come soon.”

  “Of course I will. You guys are OK, right? You’re with your dad.”

  “Yes. And my stepmom. I’m going to share a room with my stepmom. You’ve got to see the nightie she’s brought. I’ve seen windows less transparent.”

  Joanes laughed.

  “The later it gets, the more I want to get there.”