Palm Trees in the Snow

by Luz Gabás

  He looked at Kilian, whose lips were pressed closed. Jacobo tried to remember the moment when Kilian began to distance himself from him. It had been so long since his young brother had asked him incessant questions and listened to his answers in awe. Things had changed too quickly. Kilian no longer needed him, his father was dying, and Jacobo felt more and more alone. The island was to blame for everything. It trapped its inhabitants in its invisible net, and it would finish them all off as it had done to others before.

  “You’ve become pigheaded, Kilian. Leave Dad in peace, do you hear me?”

  “I have given my consent. I’ve no intention of going back on it,” Kilian replied firmly to his brother.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Antón had brief moments of lucidity in which he was able to talk to José and his sons, especially Kilian, who barely moved from his side in the hours that followed. It was perhaps the first time in their lives that they spoke without shame about very private matters. The distance from home, the stormy June weather, and the certainty of a farewell allowed for endless confidences to be shared among the mountain men.

  “Kilian, you needn’t stay here the whole time,” Antón told him again. “You can’t leave your work. Go with Jacobo, go on now.”

  For Jacobo, the walls in the hospital were collapsing around him. He preferred to cover for Kilian at work to get away from the painful scene.

  “I’m not leaving you, Dad. They can do without me. We are only waiting for the fruit to ripen for the next harvest. I don’t know if it’s just me imagining it, but each year the cocoa pods are bigger …”

  “I’m fine here,” Antón affirmed with as much conviction as possible. “The nurses look after me very well, above all, José’s daughter. Have you noticed her eyes, Son? They are almost transparent …”

  Kilian nodded. He knew very well. Whenever she appeared in the door, his mood lightened just a bit. Otherwise, he was very frightened. He had seen animals die, and it was horrible. He had seen relatives and neighbors in the funeral parlors of the valley. The certainty that he would be present when his father took his last breath made him sick. But he had no choice. His mother would have handled this better. At least with more affection. He thought about Mariana and Catalina. He had just sent a telegram to break the news. He had cried so much writing it that now in front of his father he had no tears left.

  “Kilian?”

  “What is it, Dad?”

  “You will have to take charge of the house and the family. You are more responsible than Jacobo. Promise me.”

  Kilian agreed without realizing the weight of that promise. He would be in charge of the House of Rabaltué, like his parents and their parents before them.

  “Why did you come back, Dad, if you weren’t feeling well? There are good doctors in Spain. You would have been comfortable at home.”

  Antón paused before answering. “Well, like the elephants, I chose my place to die. I’ve spent so many years here that it seems right. This land has given us a lot, Son. More than we have given it.”

  Kilian was not convinced.

  “But Dad … think of Mom …”

  “I don’t know if you would understand if I tried to explain.”

  Kilian had heard that sentence many times in his life. “Try.”

  Antón closed his eyes and sighed. “Kilian, I didn’t want your mother to see my lifeless body. It’s as simple as that.”

  Kilian was struck cold.

  “Your mother and I,” Antón continued, “have loved each other very much in spite of the distance. When we said good-bye, we both knew we wouldn’t see each other again. Words weren’t necessary. God has willed for me to go first. I’m thankful for it …”

  His voice broke down. He blinked, and his gaze grew cloudy.

  “I’d like to rest a little,” he said in a low voice.

  Kilian wished he could go back to the green fields of the mountain so his mother could cook him a rabbit stew or mountain goat with chocolate sauce and make ring-shaped pastries on feast days, for his father to bring him presents from a distant land, for his sister to complain about his pranks with her hands on her hips and his brother to dare him to walk along the highest stone walls. He wanted to taste a hunk of bread with sugar and cream from the cow, and for the snow to cover the autumn gloom.

  When his father was gone, he would bear the responsibility for looking after his family. He wanted to be like Jacobo, to be able to banish grief with a few jokes and some malamba, whiskey, and brandy saltos.

  But he was not like that.

  He rested his head in his hands as a shiver went down his spine.

  His soul yearned for the snow.

  He was getting older, and he was afraid. Very afraid.

  The door opened, and Kilian looked up hopefully, but it was José. He gripped Antón’s hand with affection.

  “Ah, José, my good José!” Antón opened his eyes. “You are also here now. And that face?” He tried to joke. “I am luckier than the natives, José. Do you know, Kilian, what the Bubis used to do when someone was very ill? They would take them to a hut in the village and leave them there. Every day they would leave a roasted banana or yam and a little drop of palm oil. That continued until death put an end to the man’s suffering.”

  He paused from the strain of talking.

  “A missionary who spent many years among the Bubis, I think his name was Father Antonio, told me that. Tell me, José, is it true?”

  “The spirits are always with us, Antón, in a hut or in a hospital. We are never alone.”

  Antón gave a small smile and closed his eyes. José released his hand gently and went over to Kilian. They heard raised voices outside the door.

  “Father Rafael is arguing with the doctor,” José told him in a whisper. “Your brother has told them that you are thinking of letting one of our doctors treat Antón.”

  Kilian frowned and went into Manuel’s office. The men fell silent. Manuel was sitting in front of his desk, faced by Jacobo and Father Rafael, who remained standing.

  “Is there a problem?” Kilian asked.

  “Yes, there is, Kilian,” responded Father Rafael, his cheeks flush with anger. “You must know that I’m not happy with one of those witch doctors coming near your father. He is in the hands of the one and true God.”

  Kilian gave his brother a withering look, and argued, “My father … our father … has spent his life between Pasolobino and Fernando Po. I don’t see why he can’t say farewell to this world with the traditions of both.”

  “Because it’s not right!” the priest exclaimed. “Your father has always been a good Catholic. What you want to do is absurd!”

  “If Mom were here,” Jacobo butted in, “she’d make you see reason.”

  “But she’s not here, Jacobo! She’s not here!” shouted Kilian. Suddenly weary, he sat down in a chair, lowered his voice, and asked, “Is there any place on the island, in the civil government, or commandments of the church where a law is written that explicitly forbids a black to pray for the salvation of a white’s soul?”

  “No, there isn’t,” replied Father Rafael sharply, taking short steps with his hands clasped over his large stomach. “But you are blowing things out of proportion, Kilian. What you want isn’t for a black to pray, you want him to cure your father. You are doubting not only the work of the doctors, but God’s will. That’s a sin, son. You are challenging God.” He turned to the doctor. “Manuel, tell him that all this is … totally unreasonable!”

  Manuel looked at Kilian and sighed. “There is no cure, Kilian, with our medicine or that of the Bubis. Everything you do will be a waste of time. And although it’s not forbidden, if Garuz hears of this, he’ll be furious. He won’t think it suitable for us to follow black traditions.” His fingers drummed on the desk. “It’s not the time for jokes, you know …”

  “I trust José’s discretion,” replied Kilian obstinately. “And I hope I can also rely on yours. Anything else?”
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br />   Father Rafael pursed his lips together and shook his head. He airily went to the door, put his hand on the knob, and said, “Do what you want, but I will give him the last rites after that—” He stopped and rephrased his words before leaving. “I will be the only and last one to give him extreme unction.”

  An awkward silence fell. Jacobo, who had remained silent, began pacing from one end of the room to the other, running his fingers through his hair, and sighing. He finally sat down beside his brother.

  “He’s also my father, Kilian,” he said. “You can’t do this without my consent.”

  “Is it not enough that I want to do it? What does it matter to you? Manuel, you yourself have told us about the plants that you are researching …”

  Manuel shook his head.

  Kilian put his elbows on the table and rubbed his temples, fighting back tears. “He’s only fifty-six years old, damn it! Do you know how many grandchildren José has? Dad will never get to know his! He’s done nothing else in life but break his back to make a better life for us, for his family, for the house … It’s not fair. No. It isn’t.”

  “Fine, suit yourself.” Jacobo exhaled, finally defeated. “But I don’t want to know anything about it.” He shot a sideways look at the doctor. “Manuel?”

  “Look, it’s nothing to do with me. I’m fond of you, Kilian …” He hesitated. “I’m fond of you both, Jacobo. It won’t be of any use, neither good nor bad.” He shrugged. “After so many years on Fernando Po, few things can surprise me at this stage.”

  The following morning, when the tyiántyo, the witch doctor, arrived, Antón was barely able to babble a few incoherent words. He named people and occasionally smiled. All of a sudden, his face was filled with pain, and it became difficult for him to breathe.

  Only José and his daughter were with Kilian in the room.

  Just after entering, the Bubi doctor and priest thanked the white man for the generous presents he had sent through Simón. He then prepared his intervention. He first put on a showy hat of feathers and a long straw skirt and lit a pipe. Then he began to tie various amulets on Antón’s arms, waist, legs, and neck. José posed respectfully, standing with his head bowed and his hands crossed, and his daughter moved around the room, following the requests of the doctor with exquisite diligence. The amulets were of snail shells, bird feathers, locks of sheep’s hair, and leaves from the sacred Iko tree.

  Kilian observed the scene in silence. He assumed that these objects, like those at the entrance to Bissappoo, acted to ward away evil spirits. When he saw his father decorated in this manner, part of him began to regret not listening to his brother. But in some part of his heart beat a small flame of longing, fed by the stories of miracles that he remembered from his youth. He thought of the image of the Faith of Zaragoza, who held in her firm arms a broken man, and fixed his eyes on Antón, waiting for something, an open smile, that would show that it had all been a false alarm, a cold, or a deceptive bout of malaria.

  The witch doctor untied a gourd filled with small shells from his waist, and the ritual began. He invoked the spirits and asked them to reveal the illness, its cause, and the most effective medicine with which to cure it. He took out two round and smooth stones from a leather bag and placed one on top of the other. The stones, José explained, were the essential tool to find out if the patient would live or die. There was no other alternative.

  The witch doctor spoke, whistled, murmured, whispered. Kilian could not understand either the questions or the answers. When José translated the final diagnosis—the patient had not fulfilled his obligations with the dead and would probably die—the weak flame was extinguished in Kilian’s heart. He bowed his head as José made the customary promise to the witch doctor to fulfill his own obligations with his deceased ancestors. The Bubi doctor nodded, pleased, and gathered up his things and left.

  “You have done the right thing, Kilian.” José, grateful for the respect the young man had shown to the Bubi traditions, put a hand on his shoulder.

  Kilian did not feel comforted by José’s words. He dragged over a chair and sat down beside his father. José’s daughter gave him a timid smile, turned down the sheets, and left, followed by her father. For a good while, Kilian held Antón’s hand tightly gripped in his own, soaking in his father’s spent heat. The blades of the ceiling fan whirred in monotonous beats.

  Much later, Jacobo entered the room, accompanied by Father Rafael. The two brothers respectfully observed Antón receive the holy sacraments and the apostolic benediction from the hands of the priest.

  Suddenly, as if he could feel the presence of his two sons, Antón began to show a restlessness that could not be calmed, even with a fresh dose of morphine from Manuel. He held the hands of the brothers with unusual strength and moved his head from side to side, as if fighting a colossal force.

  For a moment, Antón opened his eyes and said in a loud and clear voice, “The tornadoes. Life is like a tornado. Peace, fury, and peace again.”

  He closed his eyes, and breathed his last.

  It was hoarse, and quick.

  Kilian, completely devastated, saw the feared loss of expression, the rigidity of the face, and the stiffness of the flesh. Death.

  When the worst tornado that the old men could remember struck the plantation, Kilian studied it in order to understand his father’s final words. Till then, a tornado had simply been a combination of wind, rain, and furious electrical discharges. A suffocating heat preceded the phenomenon; during the tornado, the temperature dropped between twelve and twenty degrees; and after the rain, the intense heat returned.

  But this time he could not be a mere spectator; his spirit mixed with the storm. He himself rumbled and got destroyed.

  It all started with a small cloud in the zenith, a small cloud that got bigger and darker as it neared the horizon. All living things ceased activity.

  Not a sound was to be heard.

  Kilian remembered the intense calm just before the first snowflake, the sensation of unreality.

  An absolute, deep, and solemn silence reigned. Distant echoes of thunder were heard, and the lightning grew so intense that for some minutes, it looked as if the atmosphere were on fire. And suddenly, the wind, gusts of such fury that the trees were horizontal to the ground.

  The tornado lasted longer than normal and ended in a furious downpour. The wind and the rain threatened to end the world, but when they stopped, the atmosphere was filled by a delightful purity. The living beings began beating again, as if born of a regenerating fire.

  They decided that Antón was to be buried in the cemetery in Santa Isabel.

  The nurses swiftly cleaned and dressed his body before them. José’s daughter painted little marks on his chest close to his heart.

  “These signs made with ntola purify your body,” she murmured. “Now you will be received with full honors by both your white ancestors and ours. You will be able to pass from one realm to the other without difficulty.”

  The coffin left the hospital and crossed the main yard of the plantation on a truck that would take it to the city. The plantation employees followed in two vans and the manager’s Mercedes, driven by a sad Yeremías, who had asked Massa Garuz to be allowed to drive the two brothers in remembrance of the deceased. As the funeral cortege passed, most of the workers closed the doors and windows in their houses, and some tolled wooden bells.

  The Africans believed that the soul followed the body until it was buried. And even once buried, the soul lingered around the places where the dead person had lived. The bells were meant to frighten and disorient the soul so it would not return to the village. Kilian listened to José’s explanations while the royal palms of the entrance to Sampaka covered them in dappled light. He let his imagination fly to the summits of Pasolobino, wondering what the burial would have been like in the village. When someone died, the body stayed for a time in the house for the wake when the rosary was said. The murmur of the prayers and litanies in Latin served to sooth
e the pain of those present. While the prayers were repeated, nobody cried or lamented; in repeating the same thing over and over, their breathing became regular.

  In times past, the men prepared the coffin, the grave in the cemetery, the chairs in the church, and the house to receive visitors, and the women cooked large pots of beans for the relations and neighbors of other villages who came to pay their respects. Sometimes they cried or asked if the meal needed more salt. For the children, a funeral was like a party where they got to meet distant relations, only unlike in other parties, some people cried. The following day, the strongest males in the family carried out the simple wooden coffin on their shoulders through the main door of the house, onto the street, where mourners could follow it to mass. Afterward, the priest led the procession to the cemetery. All journeys made with the body were accompanied by the slow and steady toll of the church bell.

  Kilian had never asked why the bell tolled like that at funerals.

  Perhaps, like the Bubis’ bells, it served to disorient the soul.

  Pasolobino was very far away.

  Would his father’s soul be able to find its way back home?

  At the cemetery, they had chosen a corner under the shade of two enormous ceibas for Antón’s remains to rest. Several men, hired by Garuz, placed a simple stone cross that the brothers had engraved with their father’s name, that of his house, and the places and dates of his birth and death. It seemed very strange to Kilian to memorialize Pasolobino in Africa.

  All the plantation’s employees, including the manager and Manuel, along with Generosa, Emilio, Julia, and acquaintances from Santa Isabel, attended the burial. Of all of them, Santiago was most affected by the loss. He had come to the island at the same time as Antón, decades ago. From time to time, Marcial patted him on his shoulder, but that only made him shed more tears down his gaunt face.

  When the coffin descended into the earth, the feet in the direction of the sea and the head toward the mountain, as directed by José, Jacobo gratefully clung to Julia’s hand. He felt her free hand stroking his arm. When the earth had covered the hole and Manuel came over to tell his fiancée that everyone else was leaving, Jacobo resisted letting go of that soft hand. Finally, Julia went on tiptoes, gave him a kiss on the cheek, stroked his face with slight loving touches, looked at him with eyes overcome with grief, and left.