Palm Trees in the Snow
Page 5
Jacobo woke up soon after passing Barmón. He had not heard the ruckus caused by the dozen adults and children who had boarded the coach with baskets of food, nor the cackling outcry of the hens in cardboard boxes. Kilian was still amazed by his brother, who could sleep in impossible positions, at any hour. He was even capable of waking up, chatting for a while, smoking a cigarette, and then going back to sleep. Jacobo maintained that it was a good way of saving energy. At that moment, Kilian did not mind Jacobo’s silence. After saying his good-byes in Pasolobino, he even appreciated the chance to become better accustomed to the changes in scenery and his mood.
In one of these intermittent waking moments, on sensing Kilian’s pensiveness, Jacobo put his arm around his brother’s shoulder and drew him toward him vigorously.
“Cheer up, man!” he said in a loud voice. “A couple of drinks in the Ambos Mundos bar will cure all your ills. An appropriate name, don’t you think?” He laughed. “Ambos Mundos!” Both worlds, Kilian thought to himself.
Hours later, they finally arrived in the big city. There was no snow in Zaragoza, but a strong north wind, almost as hard and chilling as that in the mountains, blew. Regardless of the cold, the streets were full of people: hundreds of men wrapped up in woolen coats, slightly stooped, holding their hats or caps with one hand, and women pressing their bags to their chests. Jacobo guided Kilian to the hostel, a narrow building several stories high in the Plaza de España. It was where Antón and Jacobo normally stayed when they passed through the city. They left the suitcases in their Spartan room and rushed back out again for those drinks.
First, following the custom of many who came to the city, they went through the narrow alleyways of the old quarter, popularly known as El Tubo, to go and visit the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar and ask the Virgin to watch over their journey. They then had a plate of fried squid in a crowded bar, where they accepted the offer of a bootblack. With their shoes shining, they milled about as the crowd diminished and the shops closed. In the middle of the paved streets, where the trams and black cars circulated and where buildings had been built up to eight stories high, the two men ambled, Kilian pausing often to take in everything.
“You’re acting like a country bumpkin.” His brother laughed heartily. “What are you going to do when we get to Madrid?”
Kilian asked him about everything. It was as if the nerves of the previous days had spun into an urgent curiosity. Jacobo was pleased to act as his expert guide, putting on an air of superiority. He still remembered his bewildering first trip.
“Do you see that car?” he explained as he pointed at an elegant black vehicle with a front grille, round headlights, and gleaming roof rack. “That is one of the new Peugeot 203 sedans that they are now using as taxis. That other one is an English Austin FX3, a wonderful car. And this is a Citroën 11 CV sedan, known as the Duck … Nice, isn’t it?”
Kilian nodded, distracted by the elegance and monumental bearing of the classical facades of the buildings, such as Banco Hispano Americano and La Unión y el Fénix Español, with their large square and round windows, their columned entrances, their decorative attics, and their wrought-iron balconies.
Exhausted after their intense day, the two young men finally decided to go to the famous café that Jacobo had suggested. Kilian read the lighted sign in amazement, claiming the establishment was one of the biggest of its kind in all Europe. He entered through the double doors after his brother and hesitated, stunned. Just a wide staircase and a few arches with white columns separated them from an enormous two-story room full of voices, smoke, heat, and music. A thin railing ran the length of the second floor to allow upstairs customers to enjoy the view of the orchestra located downstairs in the center of the room. A scene from a film he had seen in Barmón came to mind, a scene where a young man came down a similar set of stairs with a raincoat hanging perfectly from his arm and a cigarette dangling in his hand. Kilian’s heart beat wildly. He took in the myriad of tables, wooden chairs, and booths, the conversation between men and women who, at first glance, seemed distinguished and sophisticated. The women’s V-necked dresses, with bows on the front, were light, gay, well fitting, and short in comparison to the thick half-length skirts and dark wool jackets of the mountain village women, and like Kilian, the men wore white shirts under their jackets, some of which sported a handkerchief, and thin black ties.
For a few seconds, he felt important. No one here knew that barely twenty-four hours earlier, he had been cleaning manure from the sheds.
Jacobo raised his hand to say hello to someone at the back of the room. Kilian turned and saw a man waving at them to come and sit at his table.
“It’s not possible!” his brother exclaimed. “What a coincidence! Come, I’ll introduce you.”
They maneuvered between the tables, on which they could see packets of Bisonte and Camel filter-tipped cigarettes, matchboxes of all shapes and sizes, glasses of anise or brandy in front of the men and champagne or Martini Bianco in front of the women. The place was packed with people. Kilian was fascinated by the size of the room, which allowed some to talk quietly in the corners while others danced near the orchestra. There was nothing like this in the whole valley of Pasolobino, not even close. In summer, dances were held in the town square, and in winter, every now and then, there were small parties organized in sitting rooms, where the furniture had to be taken out and chairs placed in a circle against the wall to make room. The girls remained seated until the boys invited them to take a turn on the improvised dance floor or they decided to dance with one another to the pasodobles, waltzes, tangos, and cha-chas played by an accordion, a guitar, and a violin that could not, for an instant, compete with the catchy, carefree rumba now coming from the trumpets and saxophones.
Just before reaching their destination, Jacobo turned and whispered, “One thing, Kilian. From now on, when we are with other people, we must not speak in Pasolobinese. When we’re alone, it’s fine, but I don’t want to look like a country bumpkin. Okay?”
Kilian agreed, though it would be difficult to stop thinking and speaking in his native language.
Jacobo greeted the man with a hearty handshake.
“What are you doing here? Weren’t you in Madrid?”
“I’ll tell you about it. Sit down with me.” The man pointed at Kilian. “And this must be your brother.”
Jacobo laughed.
“Kilian, this is Manuel Ruiz, a budding doctor based in Guinea for who the hell knows what reason.” Manuel smiled and shrugged. “And this is my brother, Kilian. Another one who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
They shook hands and sat down on a semicircular leather couch. Jacobo sat on a wooden rung-backed chair. The melodious singer, dressed in a silver-trimmed gray jacket, began to sing a well-known Antonio Machín ballad, “Angelitos Negros,” or “Little Black Angels,” and was applauded by the audience.
“You don’t have anything like this in Madrid?” joked Jacobo to Manuel.
“Dozens of them! And twice as big! But I came to sign new papers to work in Sampaka. They offered me a nice contract.”
“You don’t know how happy that makes me! Dámaso is too old for that type of life.”
“If only I was as experienced as Dámaso …”
“Fine, but he can’t manage everything. And when are you going down?”
“I’m going back to Madrid tomorrow. They’ve got me a ticket for Thursday on the …”
“Ciudad de Sevilla!” both of them exclaimed before bursting into loud peals of laughter. “We’re also going on that ship! Brilliant!”
Jacobo realized then that they had excluded Kilian from the conversation.
“Manuel used to work in the hospital in Santa Isabel. From now on we will have him all to ourselves.” He raised his head, looking for a waiter. “This deserves a toast! Have you had dinner?”
“Not yet. If you like, we can eat here. It’s chopi.”
“Chopi, yes!” Jacobo let out a chuckle.
“I love boogie-woogie!” Jacobo announced, clicking his fingers and rolling his shoulders. “It’s a pity I’ve no one to dance with!”
He swept the room and waved to a group of girls two tables away who answered with shy giggles and whispers. He thought about going over and asking one of them, but decided not to.
“Well, I’ll soon be able to sate my needs.”
Kilian, who did not like dancing very much, surprised himself by following the rhythm with his foot. He did not stop until the waiter returned with their order. When he saw the plates, he realized how hungry he was. Since breakfast, he had eaten only the hunk of bread and bacon that Mariana had prepared and the fried squid. He wondered if the smoked salmon and caviar canapés and the cold chicken and beef stuffed with truffles could fill his stomach. He was accustomed to more substantial stews, but he found them delicious, and washed down with several glasses of wine, they did the trick.
When they finished dinner, Jacobo asked for a gin, whining that even here in the biggest place in Europe they did not have a whiskey to his liking. Manuel and Kilian made do with a sol y sombra of brandy and anise.
“And you, Kilian?” asked Manuel. “How do you feel starting this adventure? Nervous?”
Kilian had taken an instant liking to the doctor. He was a young man, around thirty, medium height, fairly thin, fair haired, and fair skinned, with intelligent blue eyes behind thick tortoiseshell glasses. His deliberate way of talking proved that he was an educated and serious man, though—like Kilian—he became open and friendly with a little alcohol.
“A little,” Kilian replied. It was hard for him to admit that he was actually very frightened. He had gone from raising livestock to having drinks with a real doctor in the best nightspot in the region’s capital. “But I’m very lucky to be in good company.”
Jacobo gave him a loud slap on the back.
“Don’t be ashamed, Kilian. You’re scared out of your wits! But we have all gone through this—right, Manuel?”
Manuel agreed and took a sip of his drink. “On my first journey, I was ready to turn back when I reached Bata. But the next time, it was as if I had never done anything other than travel to Fernando Po.” He paused. “It gets into your blood. The same as the damn mosquitoes. You’ll see.”
After three hours, many drinks, and a red tin of thin Craven A cigarettes, which Kilian found pleasantly mild compared to the strong black tobacco of home, the brothers said good-bye to Manuel and returned, unsteadily and with glazed eyes, to the hostel. On reaching the Plaza de España, they crossed the tramline, and Jacobo rushed down the stairs to the public toilets. Kilian waited for him above, leaning on an iron railing. The neon-lit signs on the surrounding roof terraces helped the stout four-armed streetlights illuminate the square and its center, a fountain with a bronze statue on a stone battlement pedestal.
Under a cross, an angel stretched one arm toward the sky and held a wounded man without the strength to clutch the fallen weapon at his feet. Kilian went over and concentrated on the inscription that a lady, also cast in bronze, held in her hands. He learned that the angel on the pedestal represented Faith and that the monument was dedicated to the martyrs of religion and the fatherland. He raised his eyes to the heavens, his view blocked by neon words—“Avecrem,” “Gallina Blanca,” “Iberia Radio,” “Longines: The Best Watch,” “Dispak Tablets,” “Phillips.” It was an effort to think straight. He felt a little dizzy, and the alcohol was not the only culprit. He had left home just hours earlier, but it felt like centuries. And from what he had gathered from Manuel and Jacobo’s conversation, he still had a long and strange journey ahead. He returned his gaze to the statue of Faith and prayed for luck and strength.
“Well, Kilian?” Jacobo’s mellow voice startled him. “What do you think of your first night away from Mom?” He put his arm around his brother’s shoulder and began to walk. “A lot of new things today, weren’t there? What you saw in Ambos Mundos is nothing compared to what’s next … Isn’t that what you were thinking?”
“More or less.”
Jacobo put his hand on his forehead.
“I can’t wait to drink the whiskey in Santa Isabel! That one doesn’t give you a hangover. You’ll see. Have you packed painkillers?”
Kilian nodded, and Jacobo gave him a slap on the back.
“Well, tell me, what do you most want to see?”
Kilian paused. “I think it’s the sea, Jacobo,” he replied. “I have never seen the sea.”
Although it was his first time traveling by boat, Kilian did not get seasick. Many of the passengers wandered on deck, haggard and green faced. It seemed that seasickness was not cured by traveling more often, as his brother did not look so great, and this was his third time on the Ciudad de Sevilla. That something this size could float was beyond him. His relationship with free-running water had been limited to catching trout in the small streams of Pasolobino.
Kilian thought of his mother, his sister, and their life in Pasolobino. How far away it all was from the middle of this ocean. He remembered the cold that had followed them to Zaragoza and later by train to Madrid. The closer they got to Cádiz, the better the temperature became, and so did his state of mind as he received a frame-by-frame view of Spain on the durable tropical sleepers of the railway lines. When the ship left port and dozens of people waved white handkerchiefs in the air with tears in their eyes, the thought of his loved ones made him sentimental, but Jacobo, Manuel, and other companions planning to work in the colony had helped cheer him. Thus far, the voyage had been enjoyable, though he could not remember having so many days of rest in his whole life.
Always full of nervous energy, Kilian thought this much leisure was an unforgivable waste. He was already looking forward to some physical work. How different he was from Jacobo, who always looked for the chance to rest! He turned his head to look at his brother, reclining in a comfortable chair beside him, a hat covering his face. From the time they had left Cádiz, and even more so since Tenerife, Jacobo had done nothing except sleep during the day and spend the nights partying with his friends in the piano room or Veranda Bar. Between the alcohol and the seasickness, he was constantly tired.
Kilian, however, tried to get the most out of everything he did. Every afternoon, in addition to practicing his broken English with a dictionary, Naijalingo, he read the back issues of the magazine La Guinea Española to get an idea of the world he would occupy, at least for the next eighteen months of his first campaign. The full campaign added up to twenty-four months, but the last six, also paid, were a holiday. And the contract had begun the moment he left Cádiz. He had spent almost two weeks getting paid to read.
In all the issues of the magazine on board—all published the previous year, 1952—the same ads appeared in the same order. First was the advert for the Dumbo stores on Calle Sacramento de Santa Isabel, and just after it one for Transportes Reunidos on Avenida General Mola, offering repair and transport services in the one factoría, what they called shops and general services in the colonies. Last, the third ad showed a man who recommended the magnificent Rumbo tobaccos with a sentence in large type: “The cigarette that helps you think.” Jacobo had told Kilian that there were many different and very cheap tobacco brands in the colony and that almost everyone smoked because it drove away the mosquitoes. After the ads came religious articles, various news items from Europe, and opinion pieces.
Kilian lit a cigarette and concentrated on the magazine in his hands. He was enthralled by an article on children baptized between 1864 and 1868: Pedro María Ngadi, José María Gongolo, Filomena Ma
pula, Mariano Ignacio Balonga, Antonio María Ebomo, Lorenzo Ebama … It was odd. The first names were typical, but the surnames sounded African.
Next, he read an article on the more than five million German children who lost their families in 1945. How distant the war seemed to him! He vaguely remembered letters from his father that his mother had read aloud—before folding them and devotedly putting them in the pocket of her skirt—letters in which he described a worrying social atmosphere on the island because of the nascent nationalist movements led by fears of being invaded by British and French troops. His father recounted how most everyone on the island wanted to remain neutral, though some were pro-Allies, and in the governor’s circle, they were more pro-Nazi. In fact, there was a time when German newspapers with Spanish subtitles were freely available.
The Spanish Civil War and the European war were now over. But from what Kilian had read during the voyage, Africa had not escaped political conflict. One article detailed how excommunication was threatened for any Kenyan sympathizer of the Mau Mau religious movement and its leader, Jomo Kenyatta, because it defended the expulsion of European influence on Africa and a return to their pagan rites.
The column made Kilian think. Expel the Europeans from Africa? Hadn’t they brought civilization to a savage land? Were Africans not better off? These questions were beyond his understanding, but that did not mean he did not mull over them. Anyway, the idea he had of the black continent came mainly from his father’s generation, a generation proud of serving God and country. And from what they had told him hundreds of times, working in the colonies meant serving the Almighty and the Spanish nation. Though they returned with their pockets full, they had also accomplished a noble mission.
Nevertheless, Kilian had many questions about how to relate to people so different from him. The only black man that he had met worked in the bar on the ship. Upon first seeing him, he had stared impolitely, looking for big differences between them apart from the colors of their skin and the man’s perfect white teeth. But there was nothing. As the days went by, he stopped seeing a black man and came to know Eladio the waiter.