Palm Trees in the Snow

by Luz Gabás

  José made sure that Kilian’s bowl was always full.

  “Ösé … your daughter, the bride … how old is she?” Kilian asked, a little tipsy.

  “I think she’ll be sixteen soon.”

  “You know, Ösé? We spend so much time with the men in the riösa that I don’t know if I’ve met all your children.”

  “Two women got married in other villages,” José began to explain with some effort, “and two in the city, where their husbands work in the houses of some wealthy whites. Here in Bissappoo, I have two sons working the land.”

  “But … how many have you got?” Counting Sóbeúpo, the numbers did not add up.

  “Between children and grandchildren, many of those you see today are part of my family.” José let out a cackle. “For Father Rafael, I have four daughters and two sons. But I can tell you the truth.” In a slurred voice, he confessed, “The bride was born before Sóbeúpo, and three more came after … with another woman …”

  He pursed his lips and rocked his head. A little withdrawn, José went on.

  “The Bubi gods have favored me, yes. I have many good children. And hard workers.” He pointed in the direction of the newlyweds, then brought the finger round to his head and added lovingly, “She is very intelligent, Kilian. The smartest of my ten children! When she can, she picks up a book. With Massa Manuel she will learn many things. Yes, I’m happy she’ll be living on the plantation.”

  “The truth is I never noticed her before,” said Kilian in a careful tone.

  How was it possible that an almost midnight-blue man like José could have a dark-caramel-colored daughter?

  “The whites, you always complain that all blacks seem the same to you.” José laughed in merriment. “Well, let me tell you … the same happens to us!”

  If I had met her before, Kilian thought, I can assure you that it would be impossible for me to mistake her for another.

  He looked to her.

  Was it his imagination, or was she doing the same?

  Mosi drank and drank, holding her tightly to show the world that she was his. Kilian tried in vain to erase the thought of Mosi taking her naked body.

  “What are you thinking about, my friend?” José asked.

  “Nothing …” Kilian shook his head. “You know, Ösé? Celebrations are the same everywhere. In my village we also eat, drink, and dance at weddings. Tomorrow the euphoria will have passed, and everything will be the same.”

  “It’s never the same, Kilian,” commented José dogmatically. “Two days are never the same, like two people are never the same. See this man?” He used his head to point to his right. “I’m black, yes, but this one is even blacker.”

  “You’re right, Ösé. You’re living proof of it.” José tilted his head now, curious, and Kilian deliberately paused and finished off his topé in one gulp. “You’re now addressing me informally! That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  Kilian closed his eyes. He could hear the silence inside him. All the racket in the village sounded like a distant murmur. The alcohol had given him a soothing sensation of levity.

  There is a brief instant, just before falling asleep, when the body seems to lean over the edge of a cliff.

  It’s vertigo.

  It barely lasts a second. You don’t know whether you will sleep or die and never wake up. Consciousness stands still.

  That night, Kilian dreamed of naked bodies dancing around a bonfire to the rhythm of the drums. A woman with enormous light-colored, almost-transparent eyes asked him to dance. His hands took control of her waist and rose up to her small breasts, which vibrated incessantly to the music. The woman whispered words that he did not understand. Then she pressed herself against him. He could feel the soft pressure of her nipples against his naked chest. Suddenly, her face was that of Sade. He recognized her dark almond eyes, her high cheekbones, her slender nose, and her lips like autumn raspberries. Beside him, enormous men rode women while the songs became more high-pitched and intense. When he looked at her again, the woman was a blurred figure who would not let him leave. Her caresses became more and more intense. He resisted; she forced him to look.

  “Listen. Look. Touch. Let yourself go!”

  He woke drenched, his head buzzing because of the alcohol, and covered in red bites from the tiny jején. He had forgotten to put up the mosquito net.

  Kilian seemed to hear music, but when he stuck his head out the door of the hut they had prepared for him, he saw that the village was deserted.

  He remembered the long and intense night. José had explained to him that in Bubi tradition, there were two types of weddings: ribalá rèötö, marriage to buy a woman’s virginity, and ribalá ré ríhólè, marriage of a couple in love. The first was the only legitimate one, even if the woman had been forced into the contract.

  The buyer paid for the bride’s virginity, as it was thought that a woman who had lost it lacked all value and beauty. The second, a marriage of a couple in love, was considered illegitimate. There were no celebrations, nor solemnity, nor a party.

  Could she have lost her worth and her beauty?

  He doubted it.

  It was a splendid morning. The temperature was perfect. A light breeze cooled the sultry night air.

  But Kilian’s body was burning.

  7

  Tornado Weather

  Kilian went down the slope as fast as he could. The ship bringing his father from Spain had docked a while ago, and he was late. At the bottom, three men were unloading the last barge on the pier. Out of breath and sweating, he stopped so he could look for Antón. The sun’s rays glinted off the shoals of sardines in the sea. He shielded his forehead and squinted.

  Against the horizon, he made out the silhouette of his father, sitting on his leather suitcase with his shoulders slightly hunched. Kilian took a few steps in his direction and opened his mouth to call him, but stopped. There was something wrong. He had expected to find his father pacing, annoyed at being the last passenger to be collected. Instead, Antón looked deep in thought, gazing at some invisible point beyond the bay and the royal palms. It made Kilian shudder as he put on a cheerful voice.

  “Sorry, Dad! I couldn’t get here any sooner.”

  Antón raised his head and, still lost in thought, greeted him with a sad smile.

  Kilian was shocked to see his face. In a few months, he had aged years.

  “There was a fallen tree on the road after last night’s storm,” he continued. “You know how these things are … I had to wait a good while until they cleared it.”

  “Don’t worry, Son. It was nice to sit.”

  Antón rose slowly, and they hugged. Although his father’s body was still that of a tall and well-built man, Kilian felt the profound weakness in his strong arms.

  “Come on, let’s go.” Kilian scratched his head and picked up the case. “You don’t know how much we are looking forward to hearing news from home. How are Mom and Catalina? Was there a lot of snow when you left? And Uncle Jacobo and his family?”

  Antón smiled and raised his hand. “We’d better wait until we meet up with your brother,” he said. “That way I won’t have to answer everything twice!”

  When they got to the end of the pier, Antón glanced up at the steep path and puffed.

  “Do you know, Kilian, why they call this the slope of the fevers?”

  “Yes, Dad. Don’t you remember? Manuel told me on my first day.”

  Antón nodded. “And what did he tell you exactly?”

  “Well, that no one escapes from …” He offered him his arm. “Dad, it’s normal to be tired after such a long journey.”

  Antón accepted his arm, and they went up the path slowly. Kilian did not stop talking the whole way back to Sampaka, bringing his father up to date on happenings on the plantation, the other employees, the new laborers and the older ones, their friends in Santa Isabel, the days working in the cocoa trees … Antón listened and nodded, smiling from time to time, but he did not interrupt
once.

  He had lived long enough to know that his son’s monologue was fueled by the fear of having to give, for the first time, his arm to his father, who felt tired and old.

  “Massa Kilian!” an out-of-breath Simón shouted from the window of the truck. “Massa Kilian! Come quickly!”

  The vehicle had raised a cloud of dust along the cocoa-tree track. Kilian was checking that the squirrel traps had been set properly. Squirrels in his country were cute. On Fernando Po, they were bigger than rabbits and ate the cocoa-tree pods. Some even had wings to glide from one tree to another. The truck approached, its horn beeping incessantly. Simón got out in a flash.

  “Massa!” he shouted again. “Did you not hear me? Get into the truck.”

  “What’s wrong?” Kilian asked.

  “It’s Massa Antón!” Simón panted. “He was found unconscious in the office. He’s in the hospital with Massa Manuel and Massa Jacobo. José sent me to look for you. Come on!”

  Even though Simón drove at a breakneck speed, to Kilian the journey felt like an eternity.

  Since March, Antón’s health had been getting steadily worse, though he remained composed in front of his sons. On occasion, he even joked, saying that paperwork was much harder than working among the cocoa trees. Kilian and Jacobo had finally forgone their six months of holidays and asked that they be postponed until their father was feeling better.

  The only thing that had changed about Antón was that he now felt the constant need to tell his sons, in minute detail, about the finances of the House of Rabaltué. He repeated the number of livestock they should herd, the correct price at which to sell a mare, the price of lambs, a shepherd’s salary, and the number of reapers they would need that summer to cut the hay and store it for the next winter. He also instructed them on maintaining the house. It needed reroofing, the shed needed a beam changed, the henhouse wall needed support, and everything had to be whitewashed. With the salaries of the two brothers, along with what was earned from the sale of livestock, he calculated, they would have enough to undertake all these tasks. If one salary failed, they would have to do things bit by bit and fix something each year. And in case they had not properly understood him, he wrote down all the calculations on dozens of sheets in duplicate using carbon paper: one copy for the brothers and another to be sent to Spain by post.

  Antón had also used some of his moments alone with Kilian to tell him in greater detail about what it took to be a good master, like the relations between houses in Pasolobino and Cerbeán and the debts and favors given and owed between the family and neighbors from time immemorial. Kilian listened to him without interrupting. He did not know what to say. It made him very sad to know that his father was dictating his will to him, even if he used the pretext of letters from home, which arrived with ever more frequency. It was evident that his father felt a pressing need to leave everything in order before …

  The truck braked abruptly at the door to the hospital. Kilian went up the steps three at a time and burst into the main hall. A nurse directed him to a room beside the doctor’s office. There he saw his father lying in bed, his eyes closed. Jacobo was in a chair in the corner and rose as he saw Kilian. José stood beside the bed. A nurse gathered instruments onto a small metal tray. When she turned to leave the room, she almost bumped into Kilian.

  “Excuse me!” she apologized.

  That voice …

  The young woman looked up, and their eyes met.

  It was her! The bride of his dreams! Mosi’s wife!

  He did not even know her name.

  José began to ask his daughter something, but at that very moment, Manuel entered.

  “He is sedated now,” he said. “We gave him a higher dose of morphine.”

  “What do you mean by a higher dose?” Kilian asked, confused.

  The doctor looked at José, who shook his head.

  “Can we talk in my office?”

  They all went into another room. Manuel got straight to the point.

  “Antón has been getting morphine for months to withstand the pain. He did not want anyone to know. He has an incurable illness, untreatable and inoperable. It’s just a question of days, I’m afraid. I’m sorry.”

  Kilian turned to Jacobo.

  “Did you know?”

  “As much as you,” Jacobo answered in a sad voice. “I had no idea that it was this serious.”

  “And you, Ösé?”

  José hesitated before answering. “Antón made me promise not to say anything.”

  Kilian dropped his head in grief. Jacobo put an arm on his brother’s shoulder. They knew that their father was sick, but not this sick. How could he have hidden the seriousness of the situation from them? Why had they not thought more of his constant tiredness, his lack of appetite? Everything was due to the heat, he had told them a thousand times … to the blasted heat! Did their mother know? The brothers looked at each other, their eyes filled with angst. How were they going to tell her? How do you tell a woman that her husband is going to die thousands of kilometers from home and that she will never see him again?

  “Will we be able to speak to him?” Kilian managed to ask in a faint voice.

  “Yes. He will be conscious for short periods. But I hope that the morphine works to ease the final agony.” Manuel patted him a few times on the arm. “Kilian … Jacobo … I am so very sorry. Everyone’s time comes sometime.” He took off his glasses and began to clean a lens with the corner of his coat. “Medicine can’t do any more. Now it’s all in God’s hands.”

  “God doesn’t send sickness,” José commented when they were back beside Antón, his eyes still shut. “The creator of beautiful things, the sun, the earth, the rain, the wind, and the clouds cannot be the cause of anything bad. Sickness is caused by the spirits.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” responded Jacobo while Kilian took his father’s hand. “Things are as they are.”

  José’s daughter watched them from the door.

  “For us,” she said in a soft voice, “illness is a curse from the spirits of the ancestors who have been insulted or offended by the patient or his family.”

  She went over to José, and Kilian noticed then that she was wearing a short-sleeved open white coat over a light-green dress with large buttons.

  “That is why we show such fervor when asking for their intercession, to please them with sacrifices, drinks, and funeral rites.”

  José looked pleased by her explanation. Kilian remained silent.

  “Well then, tell me,” said Jacobo, his eyes flashing, “what are you doing in this hospital? Why don’t you go and invoke your spirits?”

  Kilian winced at his brother’s harsh tone, but she replied in the same quiet and delicate voice.

  “What can’t be avoided can’t be avoided. But we can ease a patient’s suffering.” She walked over to Antón and very carefully placed a damp cloth on his forehead. “Most pains can be calmed with simple remedies of hot or cold baths, with ointments and rubbing palm or almond oil, ntola cream or poultices of herbs and leaves, and with potions of palm wine mixed with spices or with seawater.”

  Kilian observed her delicate hands on the white cloth. She lightly pressed it against his father’s forehead. Then she picked it up and put it back in the bowl, where she soaked it again, squeezed it of excess liquid, and lovingly returned it to his forehead and cheeks. He remained absorbed in this process for a good while. In the background, he heard the others’ conversation, but in his mind, he could only see those hands.

  He did not want to face this.

  “Sometimes,” José began, referring proudly to his daughter, “Massa Manuel allows her to use some of our ancestral knowledge—”

  Jacobo, irritated, got to his feet. “Well, since you know so much, what cure is there for my father?”

  Kilian snapped to attention. “Calm down, Jacobo!” he scolded. “This hurts José just as much as it hurts us.”

  Jacobo let out a snort and sat back down.
>
  “Tell me, Ösé,” Kilian said, his eyes again fixed on the young nurse. “What would you do if it were your father?”

  “Kilian, I don’t doubt the foreigner’s medicine, and I don’t mean to offend, but in his state, I …” He hesitated, then finally said with conviction, “I would ask a witch doctor to pray for him.”

  A sarcastic laugh rang out. Kilian waved at Jacobo to hush and asked José to continue.

  “If it were my father,” he resumed, “I would take him to the chapel of the most powerful guardian spirits of my village to free him of the affliction that is tormenting him.”

  “But we can’t move him, Ösé,” Kilian objected.

  “Maybe I can get … ,” José proposed cautiously, “our doctor to come here.”

  Jacobo rose in a fury. “Of course! In exchange for tobacco and alcohol.”

  Kilian said nothing as José’s daughter looked up and stared directly at him, waiting for an answer. Her light-colored eyes seemed to tell him that it was worth trying. Would he dare ask for help from the natives? She silently challenged him.

  “Fine,” he agreed.

  She smiled and turned to her father.

  “Send Simón to Bissappoo,” she said plainly.

  Jacobo headed toward the door, shaking his head. “This is ridiculous!” he roared. “All this contact with the blacks has made you crazy, Kilian!”

  He slammed the door. Kilian ran after him and stopped him at the entrance.

  “Where did that come from, Jacobo?”

  His brother could not look him in the eye. “It’s obvious! For some time, you have preferred José’s advice over mine.”

  “That’s not true,” Kilian protested. “Dad and José are friends, Jacobo. He only wants to help.”

  “You’ve heard Manuel. Dad is going to die. It’s inevitable. Maybe you want to cling to false hopes, but I don’t. He is being well looked after. That’s what matters.” His voice trembled. “I only want it to be over as soon as possible. At this stage, it’s for the best.”