by Karla Suárez
I didn’t think it would be easy to get it back either. However, I hadn’t the least difficulty in imagining the purpose Euclid wanted to put it to. There was no limit to what someone who is capable of stealing his student’s ideas and publishing them under his own name – just to earn prestige and money – would be able to do with an original document about the invention of the telephone. You have to remember that Meucci was completely unknown at the time, except in Italy and among a few enthusiasts; even in his own day, some journalists had called him the ‘crazy Italian’ for trying to usurp an invention that clearly belonged to Alexander Graham Bell, as was proved by the legal documentation and the history books. There is no doubt that Bell invented the telephone, the only problem is that he did so a few years after Meucci. In 1876, to be precise, when he was granted the patent and pronounced what has gone down in history as the first telephonic communication: ‘Mr Watson – come here – I want to see you.’ But he should have called Meucci, not Watson, because long before, in 1849, the Italian had conducted his first experiment: the trouble was that, so far, there was no written evidence of this. The proof, as Euclid had said, was in that document that formed part of the legacy: those sketches Ángel referred to showed the design of his experiment and, as you know, in science you don’t explain things in words, they are for art and philosophy. In science it’s numbers that matter, formulae, diagrams and designs. Before speaking, a scientist grabs his pencil and draws things; doodles to the untrained eye, demonstrations for the initiated. If Euclid had been capable of stealing my work, imagine what he could do with the proof of the invention of the telephone. Or better still, what he could imagine doing with it. Okay, maybe the question of who invented that device isn’t exactly of any great concern to the whole planet. Knowing the answer to that is nothing special. But don’t forget Einstein: everything is relative. When you have nothing, a little bit can seem like a lot. It might even be everything. Here in Cuba in Year Zero, Euclid could become a celebrity and even achieve a level of renown in the international scientific community, travel to a congress, give lectures and remake himself overnight as what he’d always wanted to be – a distinguished scientist – rather than spending his time filling the storage drums in his home with buckets of water before the power cut out. At worst, he might earn enough money to eat a little better.
His objectives were clear, but there were a number of details that left me confused. According to Ángel, Margarita had told him that her father had the legacy. So, if Euclid did have the document, why had he ever spoken to me about it? If it were in his possession, the best course of action would have been to keep his mouth shut so that no one else knew anything about it. Aren’t I right? Yet the minute I told him about my conversation with Leonardo and Barbara, he showed me the folder with the information about Meucci and came out with the story of the document. It was from him that I learned of its existence. And to me, that seemed odd. So where do we go from there?
Hypothesis one: Euclid wants to use the document to make a name for himself, but he doesn’t have any important contacts outside Cuba. When I mention the author’s interest, Euclid is worried because he’s discovered that someone else is working on Meucci and, if that person hears of the existence of the document, he’ll want to get hold of it. Euclid knows that the subject will fascinate me. He, therefore, decides to tell me about the document so I won’t suspect he has it. And, in the meanwhile, he uses me to extract information from Leonardo and complete his Meucci folder, which will come in handy when he’s finally able to use that document to make his name.
Hypothesis two: Euclid hasn’t been able to do anything with the document because he lacks important contacts. His financial situation is so bad that his son, a black market trader, has to supply part of his daily diet. When I mention the author’s interest in Meucci, Euclid suddenly sees a possible buyer for the document. He doesn’t know Leonardo personally, but if he really is working on the topic of Meucci, he’ll want the document, and the sale will solve Euclid’s financial problems, at least in the short term. This supposing the author has the means to buy it, of course. Why did Euclid mention the document to me? Because I’d be hooked by the scientific interest of the topic, I knew the author and, in all innocence, could bring him and Euclid together.
But there was another important factor: Ángel. My angel had been married to Euclid’s daughter, which meant my former tutor knew that Ángel had seen the legacy because his daughter had inherited it on her wedding day. Logically, the woman Euclid had spoken of, whom I’d imagined to be just another lover, was quite simply his wife. It follows that, during his marriage, he’d have done his utmost to get his hands on the document, but she’d resisted as it formed part of the legacy which would later pass to its legitimate heir, her daughter, Margarita. Euclid had then offered to buy the document from his daughter, but she too had refused to part with it. The first time we spoke about the manuscript, he’d stressed the importance of not mentioning the subject to anyone. Not even Ángel. Why? Well, that was logical: Euclid had the document and wanted to keep Ángel out of the picture, plus, more importantly, avoid stirring his interest in that paper. Euclid had no idea of my dearest’s silly romantic notion, his high-flown ideal of closing cycles or his obsession about women with history. He knew nothing of all that. Consequently, he was completely uninterested in Ángel. The person who did interest him was the author, who had spent years collecting data and was aware of details that Euclid himself had only learned of thanks to my innocent intervention.
Whichever way you looked at it, I was the schmuck Euclid was using, just as he’d used me when I was researching my thesis. Talk about furious! Like I said, that night I hardly slept a wink; I went back to bed but didn’t sleep. By half past six, I was up and dressed for work and making coffee in the kitchen when I suddenly felt a pair of arms encircling me from behind. I turned and hugged my sleepy-eyed, ruffle-haired angel. I was surprised that he was up so early, but he said that he’d felt alone, that the bed was too big without me, and asked me to hug him tighter than tight before I left. I did just that and then we had coffee together. I adored that newly woken Ángel; he was tender, slow and beautiful. I gave him one last hug and informed him that I wouldn’t be able to come back that evening, so we should talk at the weekend.
My rage lasted throughout the whole day. As the students seemed even denser that usual, I set them a task they could work on individually and so learn to use their brains for once; I already knew how to use mine, and that day it was working overtime. In the afternoon, I left as soon as my classes were finished, walking at a terrifying speed. The intervening hours had only served to increase my edginess. Euclid was going to have to listen to everything I’d been bottling up.
When I arrived at the apartment, the door was open and his mother was fanning herself, sweating like a pig; there had been no power since noon, and so no possibility of turning on the overhead fan. Euclid had just gone to take Blot for a walk, but as I wasn’t in any hurry, I told his mother I’d wait and we sat down to chat. Chichí turned up with some friends that afternoon, and the reason I remember is because the moment they were in the door I heard a voice calling me ‘Prof’. I looked around and saw a girl I honestly didn’t recall ever having met. You know how it is: one teacher and thousands of students. But she insisted I’d taught her at the CUJAE, that she’d loved my course, and wanted to know how I was, if I was still at the university. I politely replied that I’d changed jobs, without going into detail, and she smiled and said she was working as an engineer but really wanted to be a writer. Chichí then introduced me to his friends, adding with pride that they were all future authors. I looked them over. The thin one with long hair, dressed in black, was a geography graduate. Another, also hairy and not unlike Conan the Barbarian, was a biologist. The thin-legged, curly-haired, blue-eyed young woman in short shorts who had spoken to me had graduated in electronic engineering. According to Chichí, they were rockers, avant-gardists
and all wanted to write. In that case, why the hell had they studied sciences? In this country people graduate in one thing and then work in something completely different – except for me, of course – but... there would have been no point in mentioning that.
I listened to the young people’s conversation about rock concerts in Patio de María and their literary projects until Blot appeared in the doorway, with Euclid behind him, smiling broadly at the sight of so many people in the apartment. I kissed his cheek, allowed him time to talk to his son, said goodbye to the visitors, waited for a lantern to be lit and only then told him that we needed to talk. He, no doubt, thought that I was bringing new information because he raised his eyebrows, lit a candle and invited me into his room.
You lied, Euclid, was all I said once he’d closed the door. He looked at me in surprise and, still holding the candle, moved closer to ask what the problem was. You lied, Euclid, I repeated, you lied to me. If at that moment it had occurred to him to ask forgiveness for having stolen my ideas in order to publish his article; if he’d begun to speak, apologise, attempt to clarify the situation; if he’d told me about Margarita, I don’t know, if he’d given me the faintest sign, things might have been different, but he didn’t; he merely begged me to calm down and again asked what was wrong: confirmation that there was more than one lie, and he wasn’t going to make the mistake of condemning himself before hearing what he was accused of. Euclid was always very intelligent. I looked at him gravely, sighed, and said that he knew Ángel because he’d been his father-in-law, but that he’d apparently decided not to disclose that minor detail. My former tutor smiled reluctantly, sighed and, as he put the candle on a shelf, commented: Ah, so that’s it. Then he added that I must have got that information from Ángel, that I shouldn’t worry, he’d tell me everything; it was a sad story, but the time had come to put a name to that sadness, I was one of the people he loved most in the world and he’d never harm me, much less lie to me. In fact, he’d been wanting to tell me for ages.
My rage suddenly flared up again, a boundless rage, because I could still hear that phrase, ‘Ah, so that’s it’. They were words of relief, words of ‘at least she doesn’t know the rest’, of ‘what a fright you gave me just for the sake of it’. So why didn’t you tell me? I asked. At that moment, the electricity unexpectedly returned, and with it the light, causing Euclid to smile at me before commenting: See? It’s not so serious: let there be light. I ignored the smile and again asked, this time more loudly, why he’d lied to me. Euclid repeated his request for calm and opened the door to tell his mother that she could turn off the lantern and ask her not to bother us because we were working on a project. She called back that she’d knock on the door when the meal was ready. I asked for a third time why he’d lied to me. He didn’t smile when he said that if I was so upset about nothing at all, it would be better not to let his mother and the neighbours know about it. Then he switched on the radio and tuned into CMBF, as he always did.
His version of the story was that he hadn’t said anything because there was no need. Right from the start it had been clear that I was interested in Ángel, and telling me that my prospective lover had been married to his daughter would have made me unnecessarily curious and so obliged him to talk about Margarita. I was well aware – in fact I was the only person who knew – how deeply he’d been affected by the departure of Margarita and then Roberto. I was depressed, Julia. Don’t you remember? And that depression had put an end to his university career and social life. The day we’d met Ángel in the street, he’d been tempted to tell me but later thought better of it, because my situation was independent of his. In fact, he added, he had to confess that he’d called the lad to ask him not to say anything either; it was a gentleman’s agreement, but if my angel had broken it, that meant it was the right thing to do. Euclid only wanted what was best for me, and that’s why he’d found the courage to make that call; the truth was, they didn’t have much to do with one another. When Margarita was living with Ángel, she wasn’t speaking to Euclid, so he’d been a phantom son-in-law. What use are ghosts, Julia? he asked.
He said that he preferred to think of Ángel as my man, someone new in his life rather than the son-in-law he’d never had, the husband of the daughter who wouldn’t speak to him because she couldn’t forgive him for being unfaithful. And it’s true, I was often unfaithful, Julia, very often. I understood by this throw-away remark that he was letting me know I hadn’t been the only one, although the clarification seemed unnecessary, as I’d never imagined I was; lovers are bodies that give themselves to each other for as long as the idyll lasts, and then comes the forgetting or complicity.
I’m certain there was a pause then. We were both silent. Euclid was speaking the truth. I was lost to the outside world, thinking about Las Cañitas, about what Ángel had told me, coming to the conclusion that Euclid’s reasoning was logical, that he had no need to justify his affairs to me and there was no way he could know how much Ángel had learned from Margarita. And I was also thinking about all this and the other lie. I was deep in this series of thoughts when Euclid interrupted to say that those were the reasons for his actions; he hoped I understood them, and since I had all the details, there was something else he had to tell me. Now that we have light, let it be complete, he added.
I didn’t reply; it was my turn to listen and I was definitely very anxious to hear what he had to say. His daughter was named after her mother, said Euclid. It was a family custom, nothing unusual. What was important, or at least what Euclid wanted to tell me since it affected us both, was that Margarita, his ex-wife, had owned Meucci’s document: it was her he’d been talking about, and if he hadn’t revealed her identity, it was because he didn’t want to complicate my love life. But as I now knew, there was no reason to hide anything and I should hear the whole truth. I first saw the document at home, Julia, because it belonged to my wife, and that’s why I’m absolutely certain of its existence: I held it in my hands, he announced. Things were getting interesting. I looked surprised and smiled before stating: So your ex-wife has it. But Euclid shook his head. For family reasons, sentimental reasons, that sort of thing, the mother had given it to her daughter. So then your daughter in Brazil has it, I confidently pronounced, but he shook his head again. The document was in Cuba; his daughter knew that he wanted it but, to make him suffer, she’d given it to someone else before her departure. In this very room, Julia, she told me about her decision to hand it to someone who, she said, would be able to put it to good use. The person who has it now is that writer you met, Julia. He was a friend of my daughter.
I had to laugh, couldn’t stop myself. I swear he took me by surprise. I think I uttered a ‘Euclid, please!’ between guffaws, but he moved closer, looking at me with a strange expression and, almost shouting, asked if I thought he was lying. Margarita had said that she’d given it to the writer, and he solemnly swore that if he’d omitted to share that detail with me it was because of my relationship with Ángel and all the other things he’d explained. What’s more, to clear everything up once and for all, since that meeting in the street, he’d been certain Ángel would be our connection to the writer Margarita had referred to. He himself didn’t know him personally, but he was aware that he was working on Meucci, was a friend of his daughter and, consequently, a friend of Ángel. He couldn’t tell me in the beginning because he didn’t want to make things more complicated than necessary, but now everything was out. Euclid was euphoric. He took a deep breath to calm himself and, turning his back to me, said that Leonardo was still the best lead we had until it was proved otherwise – our only lead, if I still wanted to talk in terms of ‘us’. Then he turned to face me and begged my forgiveness for his omissions, said that he’d behaved this way so that I wouldn’t be hurt, but he wasn’t lying. If anyone’s doing that, it’s them: my daughter, the writer, the history books. They’re lying, Julia, not me.
With those words he brought his confession to an end th
at night. There was no mention of the ideas he’d stolen from me, no bright light, just a small bulb shining above Leonardo’s head in an attempt to send me down some absurd path. I was in no doubt that Euclid had the document and wanted to use me to go on gathering information. Talk about fury! I was bursting to call him a thief and a liar, but I didn’t. The moment wasn’t right. His words had legitimised my anger and helped me to make a decision. Euclid most definitely didn’t deserve Meucci’s document. That piece of paper ought to be in other, cleaner, less sullied hands, hands belonging to someone who would put it to a better, more just use, but that was something I’d come to understand later. For now, I was simply determined to get the legacy from him. He’d been my tutor and I his best student; it was my duty to follow his teachings. Telling him that I knew what he’d done with my thesis would only put him on his guard and cause him to distrust me because he was aware that that I didn’t trust him. No. My dear tutor had to continue to believe that I was his ally, never suspecting that the tables had just been turned.
I sighed and told him not to worry, we were still on board the same ship, he was my captain and Leonardo our best lead. Euclid breathed again and with a smile full of hope said: Let’s keep going then, my darling Julia. I simply returned the gesture, not mentioning why I was smiling.