Palm Trees in the Snow

by Luz Gabás

  “I was thinking … that I’ll have to go home.”

  Home.

  It had been ages since he had thought of Pasolobino as his home.

  “Soon we will all leave here for good, Kilian.” Jacobo shook his head with a mixture of resignation and relief. “The future is no longer in Guinea.”

  Julia came back with the drinks. Jacobo turned to greet an acquaintance.

  “Do you know, Julia?” Kilian said. “You’re right. We’re getting old.”

  A few weeks later, Bisila sent Simón to bring Kilian to the hospital. Once there, she took out a piece of paper and showed him a drawing of a small rectangular bell with several clappers.

  “It’s an elëbó,” she explained. “It’s for warding off evil spirits. I would like Simón to tattoo it on you to protect you on the journey. Maybe on your left armpit?”

  Kilian loved Bisila’s present, something he could always carry with him. On the armpit, close to his heart, he could stroke it whenever he wanted to.

  “It will hurt a bit,” Simón warned. “The drawing is small, but complicated. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.”

  “I think I’ll be able to take it,” said Kilian.

  Kilian did not close his eyes or stop looking at Bisila throughout the whole process. The last time he had gone back to Pasolobino, Bisila had had a son by Mosi. He wanted her to be sure that he would not take so long in coming back this time. He barely blinked when Simón drew out the design with a scalpel, or when he put burning pieces of palm on the wound to burn the skin. He did not even bite his lip to withstand the pain. Bisila’s enormous eyes transmitted strength and calm.

  When Simón finished, he gathered his things. He smiled faintly and said, “Now, Massa Kilian, you’re a little more Bubi.”

  Bisila leaned over him, dabbed his wound with an ointment, whispering almost imperceptibly, “My Bubi warrior.”

  That night, Kilian wandered around the room, not knowing what to do. Bisila had not turned up. He looked at his watch. They would not even be able to say good-bye to each other! He finally lay on his bed, downhearted, and a slight drowsiness overcame him.

  A little later, a dead knock made him jump up. He sensed Bisila, who silently sneaked in, closed the door, and locked it. He cried out in joy. A few steps from the bed, she motioned for him to stay quiet and close his eyes.

  Bisila removed her thin overcoat and pleated skirt and blouse and took out some things from a small basket. Finally, she told him he could look.

  Kilian opened his eyes and gasped in surprise.

  Bisila was dressed from head to toe with tyíbö cords covering her naked flesh. The cords, full of small shells, opened over her breasts and hips, hugging her curves. On her head she wore a wide-brimmed hat with peacock feathers. A wooden pin went through both sides of the hat, holding it in place on her head.

  Bisila motioned to Kilian to get up and to come toward her.

  In complete silence, she slowly undressed him.

  When he was naked, she poured water into a bowl and took out some colored powders that she mixed with water to get a reddish paste, which she spread over Kilian’s body, beginning with his feet and legs. She gently rubbed it on his thighs and bottom, then his back, and finally his chest.

  Kilian remembered that day in the village, when he wished aloud that she and she alone would name him botuku, anointing him with ntola in a river of pure water. He wanted to circle her in his arms, but she shook her head to stop him and continued the pleasurable torture of painting his stomach and chest. She then washed her hands and took other blue and yellow powders, mixed them with water, and with the resultant paste gently drew lines on his face, as if she wanted to memorize the distance from the nose to each ear, and from his hairline to his chin.

  When finished, Bisila washed and dried her hands and took Kilian’s in hers.

  “I have dressed like a Bubi bride, according to the ancient tradition,” she said in a voice filled with emotion. “And I have painted you as a warrior.”

  Kilian was pleased to finally hear the sound of her voice, but said nothing.

  “You know that we have two types of marriage,” she continued. “One is called rèötö, or marriage to buy a woman’s virginity. It is the real marriage in law and is what joins me to Mosi. The other is called ribalá ré ríhólè, or marriage for love. It is not recognized in law, but it is between ourselves.” She raised her eyes toward Kilian and continued with a trembling voice, “We don’t have anyone to act as priest, but I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

  Kilian raised her hands and squeezed them hard.

  “I must talk first,” she went on. “And I must tell you, and you’re not to laugh, that I won’t forget my duty to cultivate my husband’s fields and make the palm oil and promise to be faithful to you, at least in my heart.”

  Bisila closed her eyes to repeat the promises to herself.

  “Now it’s my turn,” said Kilian in a hoarse voice. “What do I have to say?”

  “You have to promise not to abandon this wife”—Bisila opened her eyes—“in spite of the many more you may have.”

  Kilian smiled. “I promise that I will not abandon this wife, at least in my heart, come what may.”

  They sealed their vows with a long, warm kiss.

  “And now, what happens before going to the marriage bed?” Kilian asked with a special glint in his eyes.

  Bisila tilted her head back and laughed aloud. “Well, we would say ‘amen,’ and someone would ring the elëbó and sing …”

  “I’m already carrying the elëbó with me,” said Kilian, raising his hand to his left armpit and placing it gently on his tattoo. “Forever. We’ll always be together, Bisila. This is my true promise to you, my muarána muèmuè.”

  17

  Ë Ripúríi Ré Ëbbé

  The Seed of Evil

  1965

  Time went by very slowly for Bisila. The days and weeks passed, and Kilian did not return. Neither of them could get news of the other. Exchanging letters would have been too risky.

  Thousands of kilometers away, Kilian did write, but the letters were never sent. He read them back to himself as if she could read his thoughts. His body wandered the rooms of the house, but his heart and mind were far away. Without her, life in Pasolobino was familiar but empty.

  Almost every day, Bisila approached the main building of the plantation where the foreigners lived. She got as far as the outside stairs, placed her hand on the banister, put her foot on the first step of the stairs, and fought back the impulse to run up to Kilian’s room to see if he had already returned. Her heart beat quickly, and her knees went weak. She listened closely to the voices of the Europeans, trying to make out Kilian’s deep voice.

  That is how another year started and another cocoa harvest ended.

  On the island, the weather was excessively hot; only a weak breeze managed to alleviate the stifling air. In the Pyrenees, the weather was excessively cold; the north wind dragged the snow from one place to another as if it were grains of sand on a frozen desert.

  On the Sampaka plantation on Fernando Po, the workers began preparing the ground for planting, gathering firewood for the dryers, mending the roads and tracks, and beginning pruning.

  In Pasolobino, the walls of the house were closing in on Kilian. It snowed and snowed, and when it stopped snowing, the wind began to howl. It was impossible to go out to the fields. It was impossible to do anything. The hours beside the fire listening to his mother’s sighs seemed endless as he endured Catalina’s last days, comforting a brother-in-law he hardly knew, and repeating over and over again the same conversations with the neighbors about the riches that the future ski resort would bring to the valley.

  He needed to move, to get out. But he could not even spend time mending the house, not when his sister was agonizing; it was not right. She herself had expressed her wish to die in the house she had been born in, so he had to show her respect through his silence.

  W
ith his eyes fixed on the flames of the fire, Kilian fought against the slow ticking of the clock by thinking of Bisila. She would die if she had to put up with week after week of cold and snow. Her body was made for heat.

  How could he think of a life without her flame?

  Catalina was buried in the middle of the terrible frost at the end of February. The cold sped up the first mass in Pasolobino that Kilian had not heard in Latin and the later burial.

  The speed at which everything happened—from when they closed the coffin until the shovels gave the last taps on the dampened soil—reawakened a sense of urgency in Kilian. He wanted to go back to Fernando Po, but he had to stay with his mother in her grieving.

  How much longer would he have to wait?

  At the end of April, the rains arrived on the island.

  Bisila was tired. She had spent many hours in the hospital. At that time of year, the number of accidents and machete cuts went up. Work on the plantation was more dangerous than in the dryers, and the rain helped increase the number of pulmonary illnesses. She needed to clear her mind and decided to take a walk.

  There was no use fooling herself: her steps always led her in the same direction. She approached the whitewashed main building once again. It was very late on Saturday night, and the yard was empty. She did not want to get her hopes up, but she lost nothing in trying. It had been five months since she had seen him, since she had heard his voice, since she had felt his hands on her skin. She had asked her father nonchalantly if he had any news of Kilian through Jacobo, and that was how she found out about the death of his sister and his intention of staying longer in Pasolobino. How much longer would she have to wait? She was afraid the longer it took him to come back, the greater the chance of him learning to live without the island and without her.

  Sometimes she had the horrible feeling that it had all been just a dream. She knew she was not the first nor the last native to fall in love with a foreigner.

  Yet Kilian had promised. He had told her they would always be together. She could only trust what he had said. He was now her true husband. Not Mosi, with whom it was getting harder every time to fulfill her role as wife. Mosi was a body she lay with every night; Kilian was the owner of her heart and her soul.

  She leaned on the wall and closed her eyes, imagining the instant when the door of his modest room would open and Kilian would come out, with his wide beige linen trousers and his white shirt. He would take a deep breath, light a cigarette, lean on the railing, and meet her eyes below. She would smile, as if to say there she was, waiting as she had promised, his black wife, his Bubi wife; the woman he had chosen above all, in spite of the color of her skin and her customs, traditions, and beliefs. They would always be Kilian of Pasolobino and Bisila of Bissappoo.

  The noise of an engine brought her back to the night and the drizzle. The outside lamps flickered before going out. Darkness took over the yard.

  She covered her head with a scarf and began her walk back to the hospital, making use of the transient lights of the pickup. She was not easily frightened, but at that time of night, the big yard seemed so empty and dark. She preferred to stick close to the buildings.

  The pickup almost knocked her down.

  It passed beside her at great speed, raising a dirt cloud that blinded her momentarily and made her cough. The vehicle stopped beside the porch under the bedrooms of the employees. Some men’s voices and laughs echoed in the dark. Bisila sensed that the laughs were coming her way.

  A bad feeling ran through her body, and she decided to change direction. She would go to the laborers’ barracks through the dryers, located to the left of the main building.

  A voice resonated like thunder just behind her.

  “Well, well! What have we here?”

  Bisila quickened her pace, but a figure out of the shadows cut off her path.

  Her heart beat quickly.

  “Not so fast, darky!” said a man with a strong English accent, catching her by the shoulders.

  Bisila struggled with him. “Let me pass!” She tried to sound firm. “I’m a nurse in the hospital, and they are waiting for me!”

  She freed herself and began to walk quickly away. No one would come to her rescue if it came to it. Suddenly, a strong hand grabbed her arm and forced her to turn around and face a tall man who reeked of alcohol.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” muttered the Englishman in a slurred voice. “A woman shouldn’t be out walking alone at this time of night”—his lips curled in a nasty smile—“unless she is looking for something or someone.”

  Bisila tried to free herself, but the man twisted her arm into her back, got behind her, and began walking toward his friend. Bisila screamed, but the man covered her mouth with his free hand and whispered threateningly, “You’d best be quiet.”

  She tried to bite his hand, but he reacted quickly and squeezed his hand harder against her mouth while telling his friend,

  “Eh! You’ll never guess what I found?”

  The other man approached, also stinking of alcohol. He stretched out a bony hand and took off the scarf covering Bisila’s head.

  “It looks like we still have some celebrating to do!” he said in an accent that Bisila did not recognize. He laughed. “I’m ready for more.”

  He brought his hawkish nose forward and began to lewdly look over her face and body.

  “I can’t see you properly.” He stroked her cheeks, bosom, and hips. “Hmmm … Better than I expected!”

  Bisila twisted, terrorized, but the man holding her clasped her so tightly she was afraid he would break her arm. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Put the handkerchief in her mouth, Pao,” ordered the Englishman. “And get Jacobo out of the car.”

  Bisila clung to a small thread of hope: Jacobo would recognize her and let her go!

  Pao opened the door of the pickup and, after much insisting, managed to get the man inside to lurch out. Jacobo was barely able to stand. The Englishman shouted, “Hey, Jacobo! Wake up! The party isn’t over! Do you know where we can enjoy this beauty?”

  “What about the dryers?” Pao asked hungrily.

  Jacobo was having trouble thinking straight. The effects of the alcohol and iboga root had distorted his surroundings. Only once or twice before had he ventured to try the strong drug used by the natives to reduce their need for water and food in extreme work conditions. In small quantities, the bark or root of the thin-leaved bush with orange-colored fruit the size of olives had stimulating, euphoric, and aphrodisiacal properties. A large dose caused hallucinations. The quantity taken by Jacobo that night had sent him into delirium.

  “There is a small room … where they … store … just here …” He turned and pointed out a small door in the porch. “The empty sacks … here … yes.” He went over to the door and rested against it. “It’s … comfortable,” he added, laughing.

  The Englishman pushed Bisila violently.

  “Come on! Move!”

  Bisila tried to catch Jacobo’s eyes with a pleading look. The Englishman pushed her, and she resisted with all her strength, trying to get Jacobo to look at her. When he did, Bisila saw in horror that his glassy eyes did not recognize her. He was drugged. A sob escaped from her chest, and she began to cry.

  The Englishman laid her on a pile of empty esparto sacks, then leaped on top of her, ripped her dress, and held her arms. The man was so strong that one hand was enough to hold her hands above her head. With his free hand, he ran along her body with the speedy clumsiness of someone who wanted only to satisfy his instincts. No matter how much she moved, she could not get away from his stinking breath, and he left a stream of spittle on her neck and bosom.

  Bisila wanted to die.

  She twisted and turned as hard as she could, like a live snake thrown into the fire. She tried to scream, but the handkerchief made her retch. She sobbed, moaning and kicking until a fist hit her in the face and she nearly lost consciousness. In the darkness, she saw the man’s fa
ce and felt a hand between her thighs and something hard penetrating her. Then another face, another breath, other hands, another body, one lunge after another, more penetration, and then a silence, a pause, some laughs, some voices, and another body and another face.

  “… acobo … ,” Bisila burbled.

  Jacobo stopped on hearing his name. She raised her head and tried to scream.

  Again the laughs.

  “Ah, Jacobo! It seems she likes you!”

  “That’s what happens. You have to keep pushing, convince them what is good for them.”

  “At the start they resist, but later—”

  Jacobo was still, stunned by the pair of clear eyes trying to reach him. What were they asking for? What did they want him to do?

  “Come on, finish up!”

  More laughs.

  A weak glimmer of hope conquered by the senses, Jacobo slowly rubbing himself against Bisila’s skin, gasping in her ear, quickening his pace, releasing himself into the body his brother adored, humiliating the soul that belonged to Kilian, tamely resting on her breast …

  A prolonged moan of despair.

  Some arms pulling at him.

  “It’s over. Let’s go. And you, blackie, not a word!”

  The Englishman tossed her some notes.

  “Buy yourself a new dress!”

  And then, silence.

  An eternity of silence till consciousness fully returned.

  A beaten and raped black woman. An ordinary black woman abused by an ordinary white man. All black women humiliated by all white men.

  A short while ago, she was Bisila of Bissappoo, Kilian of Pasolobino’s wife.

  When she opened her eyes, she was a heap of rubbish on top of empty sacks.

  Simón heard a scream but did not pay any attention to it. On Saturday nights in the servants’ quarters, located just beside the white employees’ bedrooms, it was common to hear screams and laughing until the early hours.

  He turned around to get back to sleep. Nothing. He was unable to sleep. A few deep breaths and one or another snore told him his companions slept soundly. He decided to open the door to let some fresh air in and lay down again. Some men were going up the stairs amid trips and laughs. He made out Jacobo’s voice and those of his friends. They were really plastered. He was not surprised. Jacobo got that drunk only when he went out with the Englishman and the Portuguese.