The Surrender Tree

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by Margarita Engle

than the flowers

  of jungle trees.

  At least I know the names of the flowers—

  that much, my grandma taught me.

  Rosa

  I climb a palm tree

  and watch the madness

  from my hidden perch.

  Soldiers herd peasants

  into a camp, fenced and guarded,

  surrounded by trenches and forts.

  I see no houses or tents, no hospital….

  All I can do is watch with silent tears

  as wounded men, pregnant women,

  and helpless children are herded

  into the camp—

  just another name

  for prison.

  Silvia

  My mother is weak,

  so I have to be strong.

  Obediently, I shuffle into the Spanish Army’s

  strange camp, this reconcentration camp

  where I do not know what to expect.

  I clutch my little brothers tightly

  in my arms,

  secretly wondering if the armed guards can tell

  that I am thinking of Rosa’s miraculous flowers

  in caves of crystal,

  deep caverns

  of hidden peace.

  Rosa

  When night falls,

  I climb down from the palm tree

  and slip away, back to the forest,

  wishing I could take them all with me,

  all the refugees flocking like birds

  lost in a storm, flying to the mountains

  to find trees that look like sturdy guardians

  with leafy branches that whisper

  soft lullabies of comfort.

  A few refugees find us.

  Some are the children

  of women who helped me

  nurse the wounded

  long ago….

  I teach the granddaughters

  of women whose lives I saved

  and men whose lives were lost.

  José

  We try to help the refugees

  who find us.

  Rosa entertains frightened children,

  pretending to be a magical dentist,

  as she reaches into the mouth of a man

  whose throbbing tooth must come out

  if he is going to survive.

  She seems to be pulling the tooth

  with her bare fingers.

  I am the only one who knows

  that she hides a tiny key

  in her hand, a simple tool

  to ease the man’s suffering.

  When the tooth is out,

  he whispers thanks,

  and he tries to laugh a little bit,

  making his pain seem to vanish,

  a comfort to the startled,

  giggling children.

  I am the only one

  who sees Rosa’s sorrow,

  the only one who knows

  how hard it is to start again,

  another war of fever and wounds,

  the exhaustion created

  by endless hope…

  Silvia

  Hunger, fever,

  my mother’s moans,

  my brothers’shrieks,

  the madness, cruelty, or kindness

  from each new neighbor,

  all these weeping strangers

  huddled into makeshift houses

  of leaf and twig, palm frond and mud.

  Patience, impatience, hopelessness, hope…

  I stare at the forts

  with holes in the wood

  that look like eyes—

  holes for the guns

  of soldiers

  who watch us

  day and night.

  Rosa

  The numbers are impossible.

  I cannot heal so many.

  Women come as volunteers.

  I teach them simple cures.

  Garlic for parasites, indigo for lice,

  wild ginger to soothe a cough,

  jasmine for calming jittery nerves,

  guava to settle the stomach,

  aloe for burns.

  Is there at least one wild,

  fragrant remedy

  for healing sorrow

  and curing fear?

  Silvia

  Beyond the fence there is a special tree

  for hanging those who try

  to escape.

  Corridors of shacks built from mud and sticks,

  babies too weak to eat or cry,

  yellow fever, cholera, smallpox, tetanus,

  malaria, dysentery, starvation,

  my mother’s feverish, distant eyes…

  this camp is the ash and soot

  of human shame.

  José

  Rage, fury, no time for fear,

  no room for sadness.

  We like to joke

  about Spanish soldiers owning

  only the small, foot-shaped parts of Cuba

  beneath their own feet.

  We like to say that we have learned

  how to appear to obey the Spanish Empire’s laws

  without actually obeying.

  Our lives are caves

  filled with secrets.

  Silvia

  Today I am twelve.

  My mother is in heaven.

  I feel twelve thousand.

  An oxcart took her.

  The driver is dark, with a kind smile.

  I ask him why he does this work,

  and he explains that he is a volunteer

  from the Brothers of Charity and Faith,

  a church group of black men who tend the sick

  and bury the dead, even executed criminals

  abandoned by their own families.

  I ask him if he knows

  how I can find Rosa la Bayamesa,

  the Cave Nurse of Cuba.

  He looks surprised, but he answers quietly:

  First you will have to cross the fence—

  first you will have to escape.

  Silvia

  The oxcart comes every afternoon,

  People call it the death-cart.

  But I think of it as a chariot

  driven by my friend, an angel,

  a Brother of Charity and Faith.

  The angel-man brings me

  tiny bits of smuggled food,

  but there is never enough,

  and my brothers are turning

  into shadows.

  I feed them

  imaginary meals

  of air.

  Rosa

  The wind

  is an evil wind.

  I make rope from strips of hibiscus wood,

  and splints of palm bark,

  my only hope for mending bones.

  My greatest fear is of being useless,

  so I pierce and drain infected wounds

  with the thorns of bitter orange trees,

  and I treat the sores of smallpox

  with the juice of boiled yams.

  I use the perfumed leaves

  of bay rum trees

  to mask the scent

  of death.

  José

  General Máximo Gómez, the Fox,

  asks Rosa to choose twelve trustworthy men

  who can help us build a bigger hospital,

  so sturdy and so well-hidden

  that it will never be found

  or attacked.

  My wife says two trustworthy men

  will be enough.

  She tells the Fox that she is strong.

  She wants to help chop the wood

  for building our new home.

  Silvia

  Concentrate. Reconcentrate.

  Mass, cluster, bunch, and heap.

  Weyler’s camp makes my arms and legs

  so skinny that even my mind feels hungry.

  Concentrate. Reconcentrate.

  Plan, pay attention, focus, think.

  I am alone now. My brother
s

  are with my mother.

  The oxcart comes and goes.

  The Brother of Charity and Faith

  sees my hopelessness.

  He lets me ride with him,

  hiding in the oxcart.

  I am leaving.

  Where will I go?

  Silvia

  The wagon creaks,

  wheels sing…

  the night is moonless,

  my body feels ancient,

  my mind feels new.

  The driver turns and smiles.

  He hands me his cigar, a blinking light.

  He shows me how to pretend

  that I am a firefly.

  He points to a hole in the fence,

  puts his finger to his lips,

  then draws a map in the sky—

  a picture of the way

  to find Rosa.

  Silvia

  I dance through the hole in my fenced life,

  moving the make-believe firefly with my hand,

  not my mouth, because I am afraid I would not

  be able to stop coughing.

  The tiny light rises, dips, flits,

  just a foul-scented cigar

  pretending to fly,

  but it carries a memory

  of the oxcart driver’s hand,

  showing me how to find the woman

  who once saved my grandma’s life.

  Rosa’s cave is the only place I long to be

  now that my family is in heaven.

  Silvia

  Tree frogs, screech owls, the dancing leaves

  of feathery ferns, the fragrant petals

  of wild orchids.

  Night wings, crickets,

  imagining secrets,

  wondering which flowers

  might save a life,

  and which could be dangerous,

  if I don’t learn quickly, if I feed a patient

  just a little too much…

  Will Rosa teach me?

  Is Rosa real, or just one more

  of those comforting tales

  the old folks tell

  at bedtime?

  Silvia

  Moonless thunder, silent lightning, the tracks

  of mountain ponies.

  Mambí birdcalls, a stream, tall reeds, the song

  of a waterfall, my own tumbling, exhausted,

  singing wild hopes.

  A trail, more hoofprints, a woman in blue

  with long, loose black hair just like my own.

  The whistle of a Canary Islander,

  speaking the secret language of Silbo.

  My bare, bony feet running, following,

  racing toward Rosa….

  José

  All night I stand guard, singing silently

  inside my mind, to keep myself awake.

  In daylight I sleep, while others watch.

  A whistle reaches into my dream…

  the face of a pale, skeletal child,

  two eyes, deep green pools

  of fear….

  Silvia

  Does the old man in the forest

  know that he sings in his sleep?

  I stare, he stares,

  then we both smile.

  Rosa, I hear myself chant the name

  over and over,

  begging for a flower-woman

  who will teach me how to save lives.

  I tell the old man that I already know

  the names of the blossoms, all I need is a chance

  to learn their magic.

  With a sigh, he says,

  Yes of course, one more child

  is always welcome,

  follow me….

  Rosa

  The new girl is so thin and pale

  that I cannot let her help me

  until she has learned

  how to heal herself.

  I make her eat, sleep, rest.

  She resists.

  I see a story in her eyes.

  She thinks she has no right to eat

  while so many others starve.

  Silvia

  Rosa is a bully.

  I thought she would be sweet and kind,

  but she forces me to sip my soup,

  and she stitches a cut on my forehead,

  just a scratch from a thorn in the forest,

  but she studies it the way I studied the forts

  at the camp, with the holes for guns

  that look like eyes.

  The needle hurts, the thread itches.

  Maybe I don’t want to be a nurse after all.

  Speed, Rosa tells me, is the best painkiller,

  so she stitches my skin quickly, calmly,

  her expression as mysterious as a book

  written in some foreign alphabet

  from a faraway land.

  She looks at my tongue,

  puts her finger on my wrist,

  explains that she is counting my pulse.

  She tells me I do not have leprosy or plague,

  measles, tetanus, scarlet fever,

  jaundice, or diptheria.

  By now, she adds, you must be immune

  to yellow fever,

  and malaria, well, that is an illness most Cubans

  will carry around

  all our lives.

  I picture myself lugging a suitcase loaded

  with heavy diseases….

  I daydream a ship, an escape route, the ocean….

  Rosa

  The girl is well enough to learn.

  I show her one cure at a time.

  A poultice of okra for swelling.

  Arrowroot to draw poison out of a wound.

  Cactus fruit for soothing a cough.

  Hibiscus juice for thirst.

  Honey for healing.

  I show her the workshop where saddles are made

  with leather tanned by pomegranate juice,

  and I show her the workshop

  where hats are woven

  from the dry, supple fiber of palm fronds,

  and the place where candles

  of beeswax are shaped

  to light the rare books

  from which cave children learn

  how to read comforting Psalms,

  and the Simple Verses of José Martí,

  our poet of memory,

  our memory of hope….

  Rosa

  Young people are like the wood of a balsa tree,

  light and airy—they can float, like rafts,

  like boats….

  José and I are the rock-hard wood

  of a guayacán tree,

  the one shipbuilders call Tree of Life

  because it is so dense

  and heavy with resin

  that it sinks,

  making the best propeller shafts—

  the wood will never rot,

  but it cannot float….

  Young people drift on airy daydreams.

  Old folks help hold them in place.

  Silvia

  Rosa helps me see the caves

  in her own way.

  I gaze around at the forest,

  where she has been free,

  so alive in this wonder,

  where trees grow like castle towers,

  with windows opening

  onto rooms of sunlight.

  I can no longer imagine

  living anywhere else,

  without this garden of orchids

  and bright macaws.

  I think of all I know

  about tales of castles.

  There is always a dungeon,

  and a chapel,

  bells of hope….

  Rosa

  Silvia tells me that she used to visit

  her grandparents in town.

  They kept caged birds,

  and in the evenings they walked,

  carrying the cages up a hill

  to watch the sunset.

  Inside each cage, the captive bir
ds

  sang and fluttered, wings dancing.

  Silvia admits that she always wondered

  whether the birds imagined they were flying,

  or maybe they understood the limitations

  of bamboo bars, the walls of each tiny cage.

  Now I ask myself about my own limitations,

  trying to serve as mother and grandmother

  to a child who has lost

  everyone she ever loved.

  Rosa

  The Fox has named me

  the first woman Captain

  of Military Health,

  the first Cuban rebel army nurse

  who will be remembered

  by name.

  I think of all the others

  who went before me

  in all three wars,

  curing the wounded, healing the sick,

  nameless women, forgotten now,

  their voices and hands

  just part of the forest,

  whispering like pale yagruma leaves

  in a breeze.

  On hot days, even the shade

  from a yagruma leaf

  offers soothing medicine,

  the magic of one quiet moment

  of peace.

  José

  Warnings fly from every direction.

  Lieutenant Death, the old slavehunter,

  never gives up.

  He is seen far too often, tracking, stalking,

  hunting his prey.

  The price for Rosa’s ear grows—

  her ear, the proof of her death.

  I climb a towering palm tree,

  to watch the movements of shadows below.

  I wait, studying the shapes to see

  which might be wounded rebels,

  coming to Rosa for help,

  and which could be Death,

  bringing his nickname,

 

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