Still the Same Man by Jon Bilbao

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.