Palm Trees in the Snow

by Luz Gabás

  Kilian and Jacobo remained there as José went to collect some objects that he had hidden before the burial. With a spade, he dug a hole at the head of the grave and planted a small sacred tree. He then surrounded the mound with some stones and stakes.

  “This will banish the souls of other dead people,” he explained.

  Jacobo withdrew a few paces but did not say anything.

  Kilian’s eyes remained on the words engraved on the stone cross.

  Who will visit your grave when we are no longer here?

  He knew that it would be difficult even for José to tend the grave. Yeremías had explained to him that once the dead were buried, Bubis were afraid of visiting cemeteries. They believed that doing so could cause many deaths in the village. If it were in Pasolobino, his mother would initially go every day to keep Antón company in his eternal rest, and later, every week. There would always be someone talking at his feet.

  Why did you come back from Spain? he thought.

  He would have to relive the last days when writing the letter to his mother. She would want to know all the details: his last words, the moment of extreme unction, the priest’s sermon praising her husband and remembering the most important moments in his life, and the number of mourners and condolences received. Kilian would have to put it in writing and pretend that he was well and that she did not have to worry. Life went on, and he had a lot of work, and they wouldn’t be short of money.

  “What are you thinking about?” José asked.

  “I wonder,” Kilian answered, gesturing to Antón’s grave, “where he is now.”

  José came closer. “He is with our ancestors. I’m sure he is happy with them.”

  Kilian nodded and said a simple prayer wishing his father a good journey, wherever he might be.

  Jacobo walked to the gate of the cemetery so that they would not see him cry.

  Antón died at the end of June 1955, the same day the celebrations began in his valley, honoring the patron saints of summer. In July, the fields began to be cut in Pasolobino; in August, the cocoa harvest in Fernando Po, which continued until January of the following year. They were the hard months of work in the dryers.

  Kilian worked day and night. His whole life revolved around work. And when he rested, all he did was smoke and drink more than he should. He became withdrawn, taciturn, and short-tempered. Jacobo and José began to worry. Nobody could withstand such physical toil. At first, they thought that it was the result of Antón’s death, but he did not improve as the weeks passed.

  He was continuously restless, imagining problems in the dryers. He shouted at the workers, something he had never done before, and he worried about everything.

  “Kilian!” his brother pleaded. “You have to rest!”

  “I’ll rest when I die!” Kilian answered from the roof of one of the barracks. “Somebody has to do it!”

  José frowned. Sooner or later, he would collapse.

  A little after Christmas, Kilian fell ill. It started with a temperature slightly above normal that in a week went up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It was only then he agreed to go to the hospital.

  For days he was delirious. And in his delirium, the same scene repeated itself over and over again: He and his father were in a house, and it was pouring outside. One could hear the gulley in danger of overflowing and flooding everything in its path. This gulley had burst its banks before and dragged away the strongest houses. They had to leave, or they would die. Kilian insisted, but his father refused; he told him he was very tired and to go on without him. Outside, the wind and rain roared. Kilian shouted in desperation at his father, but he kept sleeping in his rocking chair. Kilian cried and shouted as he said good-bye and escaped.

  A hand squeezed his to comfort him. He opened his eyes, blinking away his nightmares, and frowned at the fan moving above his head. A pair of big light-colored eyes looked down.

  When she felt that Kilian was fully awake, José’s daughter gently brushed aside the copper locks from his sweating forehead. “If you haven’t honored your dead properly, the spirits will torment you. You don’t have to offer goat and chicken sacrifices. Honor them well, in your own way, and Antón’s spirit will leave you in peace. Let it go. After all, God made everything, even the spirits. Let him go. That will be enough.”

  Kilian pressed his lips together tightly, and his chin began to tremble. He felt tired and weak, but he appreciated the kind words. He wondered how many hours or days she had been a silent witness to his suffering. She continued to stroke him. He did not want her to stop. Her hands were slim, and her fresh breath was but a few centimeters from his parched lips. He opened his mouth to ask her name, but the door suddenly opened and Jacobo entered like a hurricane. The girl sat up, but Kilian did not allow her to let go of his hand. Jacobo reached the head of the bed in three bounds and, seeing that Kilian was conscious, exclaimed, “My God, Kilian! How are you feeling? What a fright you have given us!”

  He frowned in the direction of the nurse, who, though she had pulled back her hand, did not leave Kilian’s side. For a few seconds, the girl sent shivers down him.

  Wow, Jacobo thought, where did this pretty one come from? He quickly pulled himself together.

  “How long has he been awake? You didn’t think to alert me?” Not waiting for an answer, he turned to Kilian. “Bloody hell! A bit more and you’d be off with Dad …”

  Kilian rolled his eyes, and Jacobo sat on the bed.

  “Seriously, Kilian. I’ve been very worried. You’ve been here for five days with a raging fever. Manuel assured me that it would break, but it took its time …” He shook his head. “It will take time to get your strength back. I have spoken to Garuz, and we think that you could recover your strength on the ship home …”

  Jacobo caught his breath as Kilian spoke. “I’m happy to see you too, Jacobo. But I’m not going home.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to. Not yet.”

  “Kilian, I have never met anyone as pigheaded as you. Look, a letter from Mom arrived a couple of days ago.” He put his hand in his shirt pocket and took out the letter. “Fresh news! I was dying to tell you. Catalina is getting married! What do you think of that? To Carlos, from the House of Guari, do you remember him?”

  Kilian nodded.

  “It’s not bad. He’s not from one of the big houses, but he’s a hard worker and honorable. Mom has written about the dowry, to see what we think … The wedding won’t be until after the mourning, of course—that’s why they haven’t made it official—but …” He stopped when he realized that his brother was not showing any sign of happiness. “Lad, you’ve gone from one extreme to the other. You used to be interested in everything, and now you are interested in nothing. Life goes on, Kilian, with or without us …”

  Kilian turned his head toward the window, and his eyes met those of the young nurse, who had not left his side as Jacobo was talking. She pretended to get the thermometer and his medication ready. With a slight nod that only Kilian noticed, she agreed with Jacobo’s last words. Life goes on, he repeated to himself, absorbed in those heavenly eyes.

  They heard a rap at the door.

  “Perfect timing!” Jacobo stood.

  Kilian turned his head and recognized Sade’s statuesque figure covered by a simple knee-length white cotton dress with a printed trim of blue lobelias, like small pointed palms, held at the waist by a narrow belt. He had never seen her dressed like that, without jewelry or makeup. In fact, he had never seen her in the full light of day. She looked even more beautiful than in the club.

  “I sent her a message yesterday,” explained Jacobo, triumphant.

  For weeks, he had been unable to convince Kilian that the troubles of the soul could be sated by desire. Now his brother had no excuses.

  “I didn’t want you to spend so many hours here on your own. She offered to keep you company. I have to get back to the dryers. Sade will look after you until you’re yourself again, Kilian.” He looked at hi
s watch, got up, and gave him a few pats on the shoulder. “I am leaving you in good hands!”

  As Jacobo left, Sade sat on the edge of the bed. She kissed the tips of her index and middle fingers and caressed Kilian’s lips with them, until he turned his head away.

  “This can’t be right, my massa,” she reproached him in a melodious voice. “You haven’t been to see me for weeks.” She clicked her tongue. “I’m not going to let you forget me.”

  She winked at the nurse and added, “You can go. I’ll watch his temperature.”

  Kilian noticed the nurse tense. She met his gaze and gave him a tired and grateful smile. As if reading his mind, she put the palm of her hand on his cheek. Sade raised her eyebrows and whispered to him soothingly in Bubi. Kilian did not understand their immediate meaning, but he closed his eyelids, and a comforting sleep took hold of him.

  Time passed on the plantation, and the wet season arrived, alternating between pouring rain, fleeting showers, and crisp breezes that succumbed to the sticky daytime heat. Even when a small tornado let loose its fury on the cocoa trees, covering them in erythrina leaves, the work did not stop for a second. The fruit of the cocoa—whose scientific name Kilian had learned was Theobroma, or food of the gods—kept growing and ripening on the trunks. When they turned to a reddish color, they were ready for harvesting.

  From August to January, week after week, thousands of cocoa pods passed through the hands of the seasoned workers. Watched over by Jacobo, Gregorio, Mateo, and the foremen, the laborers collected the ripe and healthy berries with a small hook shaped like a scythe fixed onto a long stick. With great care and dexterity they picked the cocoa, letting it fall without touching the others. The chosen pods, which they piled up beside the cocoa trees so that other men could come and break them open with their machetes and extract the grain, which they filled into sacks and stacked along the track.

  The main yard overflowed with activity for many days and nights. Those in charge of the trucks transported the sacks from the cocoa trees and tipped their contents into large wooden tanks, where they fermented for seventy-two hours, allowing a thick, viscous liquid to leak out. After fermentation, other men spread the beans over slate sheets in the dryers, under which flowed a current of hot air that heated them up to 160 degrees Fahrenheit.

  Kilian, José, Marcial, and Santiago took turns supervising the drying process, which lasted between forty-eight and seventy hours, to make sure the workers did not stop turning the beans until the supervisors were happy. Then, they transferred the beans into large wheelbarrows with holes in their bottoms to allow the beans to cool and later put them through the cleaning machine before packing them in sacks meant for various destinations.

  Finally, it was done. Thanks to the methodical workdays, Kilian’s impatience in the months prior to his illness started giving way bit by bit, turning into apathy.

  This permeated all aspects of his life except work, where he still stood out for his dedication and effort. He went to Santa Isabel only when it was his turn to buy material in the stores or when Sade threatened that she would come to his room if another month went by without seeing him. More than likely, the threats were Jacobo’s way of forcing him out. Kilian knew she was not faithful to him. He stopped going to the cinema, he managed to get the rest of the employees to stop asking him to go with them to their many parties, and he declined invitations to dinners with Julia, Manuel, Generosa, and Emilio. He felt happy only in the solitude of the jungle, and he gladly accepted José’s company only because he talked to him without lectures.

  When Antón had been dead for almost two years, Jacobo went on holiday to Spain to attend Catalina’s wedding. When he returned, he poured a whiskey for his brother and himself and told Kilian all the details of his stay in Pasolobino.

  “Everyone missed you, Kilian,” he finished. “Catalina would have liked to have had both of us to walk her down the aisle in Dad’s absence … And Mom, well, strong as ever. You should have seen how she made sure everything went well, the menu, the dresses, the church …” He chuckled. “She turned the house upside down to get it looking its best!”

  “Did you tell her that we can’t both go at the same time?”

  “Yes, Kilian, I told her. But she knows nowadays you can catch one of those new planes and be home in three or four days.”

  “The plane is too expensive. With the wedding and the dowry and without Dad’s salary, we can’t be given to excess.”

  “In that you are partly right.” Jacobo drained his glass. “You know, when you came here four years ago, I had a bet with Marcial that you wouldn’t last a full campaign.”

  “And you lost the bet!” His brother nodded. “I hope it wasn’t too big.”

  The two of them laughed, as if nothing had happened and they were the same young men full of dreams, as strong as the trunks of the ash trees at the foot of the snowy peaks of Pasolobino. They both gazed into their glasses, nostalgic, until the door opened.

  “It’s great to find you both here!” Manuel grabbed a glass and sat down beside them. “I saw light from the window and wanted a bit of conversation. I’d come more often, but I finish up tired, and then I can’t be bothered.”

  “That’s what happens when you live in a house on your own.” Jacobo filled his glass.

  “I hope for not too long …”

  Kilian raised an eyebrow. “Are you thinking of leaving?”

  “No, not at all.” Manuel raised his glass level with his eyes. “Here’s to my wedding.”

  After the initial surprise, the brothers joined in the toast with him.

  “Julia, her family, and I are going to Madrid in fifteen days. We’ll get married there, and then we’ll be away around three months. Well, Generosa and Emilio will return sooner, to run the business.”

  Jacobo downed his drink and put his glass on the table with a thud. “I’m happy for you, Manuel,” he said in a forced cheerful tone. “Truly. You have been very lucky. Julia is a wonderful woman.”

  “I know.”

  “Yes,” Kilian added. “It’s great news, Manuel. And afterward, what will you do?”

  “Oh, Julia agrees that we will live here, in Sampaka, in the doctor’s house. It’s big enough for a family. And she knows how to drive, so she can continue working in her parents’ shop. For the moment, everything stays the same.”

  “Not quite the same, Manuel, not quite …” Jacobo tried to joke. “You will be under watch at all hours!”

  “It’s easy having Julia as the wachiwoman, Jacobo, very easy.” Manuel smiled.

  Kilian saw Jacobo make a face and said, “And have you not thought about moving to Madrid? Won’t life on the plantation be boring? Julia is used to the city, isn’t she?”

  Manuel shrugged. “Julia is more from Fernando Po than anyone else. She doesn’t want to hear a word about leaving. In any case, if she finds the adjustment difficult, we can always rent a house in Santa Isabel. We’ll see …” He stretched his arm to reach the bottle and get another glass but looked at the clock and changed his mind. “Well, now that I’ve told you the latest news in my otherwise mundane existence, I’d better go. I still have to take a look at a couple of patients before going to bed.”

  When they were alone, Kilian looked at Jacobo and said in a neutral voice, “You took that better than I expected.”

  “How else should I have taken it?” Jacobo scoffed.

  “Lad, you let her escape. You know that I would have liked her for a sister-in-law.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense, Kilian. I did her a favor.”

  “What do you mean?” Kilian raised his eyebrows.

  “Well, it’s fairly obvious. Someone like Julia deserves someone like Manuel.”

  “I’m surprised that you are so understanding, Jacobo.” He shook his head.

  Jacobo stared at him with sadness, resignation, and craftiness all at once. He raised his glass and gently knocked it against his brother’s.

  “Life goes on, Brother.” />
  Julia and Manuel returned from their long honeymoon at the beginning of autumn, and they moved into the doctor’s house in Sampaka. Julia started to travel every day to the city to work in her parents’ store.

  On a rainy November morning, Jacobo went to the shop to collect an order for material. When he parked the pickup, he saw Generosa and Emilio, elegantly dressed, getting into their red-and-cream chrome-finished car. Of all the expensive cars on the island, Jacobo was especially fond of this ’53 Vauxhall. He went over and said a friendly hello.

  “Sorry, we can’t stay, Jacobo.” Generosa smoothed the collar of her damask silk cinnamon-colored jacket in the passenger seat. “But we’re late for mass in honor of the patron of the city, and then invited to brunch in the general government.” She pointed to her husband proudly. “Have you heard? Emilio has just been appointed to the Neighbors Council.” The man waved a hand in the air. “Nothing happens for months, and then everything happens at once! We have to start preparing next year’s festival already. It will be the centenary of the arrival of Governor Chacón and the Jesuits, and the diamond jubilee of the Claretian missionaries on the island.”

  Jacobo held back a smile on seeing Emilio’s impatient scowl.

  “By the way,” she continued, “have you heard about the tragedy in Valencia? Almost one hundred people dead after the Turia burst its banks!” Jacobo had not heard anything. “Well, tell Lorenzo Garuz that the government of the colony has responded to the call. We collected two hundred and fifty thousand pesetas, and cocoa will also be sent. Any help is welcome.”

  Her husband put his foot on the accelerator without letting out the clutch.

  “Yes, now, good-bye, good-bye.”

  “Julia will look after you, lad,” said Emilio before setting off. “She’s in the store. Come whenever you want. And bring your brother.”