Palm Trees in the Snow

by Luz Gabás

  “Blasted natural sources,” said Iniko. “If only this island was a desert! I’m sure nobody would want it then.”

  Clarence frowned and took another sip of wine. How could she tell him he was wrong, that these resources could mean progress for a nation? She still had memories from her childhood in struggling Pasolobino. The roads were not paved, power and water cuts were frequent, the cables hung from the walls, some of the houses looked as if they had been abandoned, and, of course, there was a lack of medical services. She still remembered the killing of pigs, the milking of cows, the traps for the thrushes, the hunts for mountain goats, the cleaning of the sheds, the collecting of hay for the livestock, the dirt of the streets used by animals, and the muddy tracks.

  When she was ten—not that long ago—any European from France northward or any American who saw photos of her village would think they were living in the Middle Ages. In less than forty years, Spain had turned itself around to the extent that places as isolated as Pasolobino had become small tourist paradises. Maybe this tiny part of Africa also needed time to balance its extremes.

  “I don’t agree with you, Iniko,” she began to say. “Where I live, thanks to the skiing, life has improved for a lot of people—”

  “Please!” he interrupted her angrily. “Don’t compare! Here there is money, corrupt politicians, and millions of people living in precarious conditions.”

  Clarence shot him a stern look and bit her tongue. A rising murmur confirmed that they were commenting on the words spoken up to that point. Iniko held her look, frowned, and sought refuge by pretending to look for something in the rucksack that was beside him. Clarence drank in silence. The liquor was drilling a hole in her stomach, but she managed to contain the urge she had to get up and leave.

  A few minutes later, Dimas raised his hand, and the gathering fell quiet.

  “I see you bring papers, Iniko. Any news?”

  “Yes. The government is preparing a new land law. I have brought you a draft application for you to register them in your names.”

  “For what?” asked an albino man with bright eyes.

  Clarence looked at him with curiosity. She found it strange that the man had the same features as the others, but that his skin was completely white. A unique fusion between black and white, she thought.

  “The forest belongs to no one, but man belongs to the forest. We don’t need papers to know what is ours.”

  Several men agreed.

  “You talk like a Fang.” Iniko rose a finger in the air. “They are going to destroy the centuries-old property rights of many families.”

  “For centuries, our word has been accepted concerning the ownership of the land we occupy,” said Dimas. “The word is sacred.”

  “The word doesn’t work anymore, Dimas. Now you have to have your papers in order. The new law continues to follow African law, which rejects the private ownership of land and favors its use, but at least it includes a clause on traditional familial property inheritance. They say that no one can bother you on the lands that you have been habitually occupying for agriculture and housing. It’s a start. If my grandfather had presented plans to manage the plantation when the Spanish left, it’s possible he could have kept it. But he didn’t do it. The Spaniards couldn’t transfer the property rights because they didn’t own the land, but they could have transferred the right of concession so that others could have continued to operate it. I want your children to receive this right of concession of the land. So that others don’t come and take it away.”

  There was a murmuring. Clarence saw that the majority of those present nodded. In the distance, songs could be heard.

  “Thank you, Iniko. We will study what you have said, and we will talk the next time you come. Now we will enjoy the dancing. We have spent a long time talking, and we don’t want our guest to get bored.”

  Clarence was pleased that the chief had brought the meeting to a close. The palm wine was going to her head, and she felt sleepy. The day had been long and intense. Iniko’s various teachings and his capricious moods had left her a little confused and upset. On the one hand, she felt privileged after having visited such marvelous and remote places in the company of a man she so desired. But on the other, she regretted that Iniko was not able to separate the true Clarence from her nationality. Would he do the same if she were Australian? She wondered.

  Iniko gave her a slight poke and motioned to her to look in front of her. Clarence lifted her head. With her vision somewhat blurred, she looked at a group of women performing a simple dance. They were dressed in raffia skirts and adorned with shell collars and wrist and ankle straps with amulets hanging from them. Their breasts were bare, their faces painted with white marks, and their hair gathered in tiny braids. Some of them carried wooden bells that made a deep sound, similar to the voices chorusing the song. Others beat the ground with sticks and feet in a simple but intense dance. After a while, Clarence found herself murmuring some of the verses. She did not understand what they were saying, but she did not mind. In spite of the drink and the tiredness, the message was clear and pure. Everyone formed part of the same community, the same earth, the same history. Everyone shared the same life cycle from the beginning of time. The ancestral spectacle reduced temporal distance from the infinite to this very moment, which had happened before and would happen again.

  When the dance finished, Clarence felt at peace, comforted, and relaxed. Beside her, Iniko gulped the last drops of his drink. Clarence watched him. How to tell him that there were more things that united them than he thought? She felt she had more in common with him—the same language, the same Catholic tradition, the same childhood songs—than with a Dutchman. How to end his resentment? How to tell him that rancor was not good, that it ended up affecting those who were not at fault? How to make him understand that when you can no longer fight for a lost cause, the best option was to find a balance? That sometimes years had to go by before troubled waters could find calm?

  Iniko slowly stretched, showing off his enormous span, put out a hand toward her, and, with a captivating smile, leaned over in search of her eyes.

  “I could stay here for weeks. Wouldn’t you like to bathe in the waterfall every morning?”

  She tingled. It seemed that the charming Iniko had returned. “It’s very tempting, yes, but I have my small paradises in Pasolobino as well. Also, what about the rest of the island, San Carlos or Luba as it is now called, and its giant crater, the marvelous white sandy beach in Alena, from where the fishermen go to the Loros Islands? What about Batete and its church constructed entirely of wood? Don’t you want to show me all that? How could you ask me to give up half of the best vacation of my life?”

  “I’ll make it up to you now, and I will owe it to you if you ever come back to Bioko.”

  She gave him an impish smile. “Okay,” she agreed, hoping he would get the double meaning of her reply. “In any case, I don’t believe anything can beat Moraka Beach.”

  “Wait and see!”

  Clarence half closed her eyes while a shiver of pleasure ran down her spine.

  “I’m referring, of course, to the fact that you will finally travel around the whole of Sampaka.” He noticed that she blushed and paused. “What did you think? That I’d also ask you to give up your visit to the place where we met?” He got to his feet and put out his hand to help her up. “Do you know, Clarence? It would have been impossible for you to have met anyone else other than Laha and me upon your arrival. The spirits wanted it so. And I don’t know how to fight against the will of the spirits. They must have some reason.”

  She remembered having asked herself why she felt attracted to Iniko and not to Laha. Possibly the spirits had some reason for that as well.

  It began to rain outside.

  “Remember the day I bumped into you?” It had happened barely three weeks ago, but to Clarence, it seemed like ages.

  “When I took you for a newly arrived secretary?” asked Iniko.

  C
larence laughed. “Yes! I have to admit you scared me a bit.”

  “I hope you’re over it.”

  “Not completely. When I met you in Sampaka, and then in your mother’s house, you seemed gruff and distant.”

  He turned to her in surprise.

  “Yes,” she insisted. “I even thought you didn’t like me. Don’t you remember? At the dinner, your mother said something to you in Bubi and you changed.” Iniko nodded. “What did she say?”

  “A cliché. She told me not to judge you until I knew you.”

  “Well, it was very good advice. Look at how things have changed. If King Eweera were ruling now, you’d be under threat for consorting with a white woman.”

  He burst out laughing. “If King Eweera were ruling, you would be under threat for trying to control a Bubi.”

  Iniko stopped the 4x4 in front of the rusted gate with remains of red paint on it, over which a name, soldered on, could be seen—SA_PAK_—which had lost two of its letters.

  “Since you are so smart, and are so interested in names, do you know what Sampaka means?”

  Clarence thought for a couple of seconds. The plantation was set up beside the village that used to be called Zaragoza.

  “I presume it’s the original name of the village.”

  Iniko smiled with a look of superiority. “Sampaka is the contraction of the name of one of the first freed slaves who disembarked in Port Clarence when the island was occupied by the English. The name of this freed slave, Samuel Parker, became Sam Parker, then Sampaka.”

  Clarence turned toward him. “And how do you know this?”

  Iniko shrugged. “They must have told me in school when I was young. Or I must have heard it when I was working as a laborer. I can’t remember. Well, shall we go in?”

  “One more question. I’m curious to know if you ever feel nostalgic about the years you spent on the plantation.”

  Iniko thought for a few seconds. “I was happy here as a child, but when I was forced to come back, the work was hard and boring. Maybe I feel a mixture of indifference and familiarity.”

  She directed her gaze toward the majestic palm trees whose feet were painted white up to a height of about two meters. Each palm was barely a meter apart from the next. They formed two parallel rows, which were separated by a dirt avenue and seemed to meet at a point in the distance. The entrance closed in on itself, swallowing up the traveler.

  She said, “Fate wanted my family to come and work in Sampaka instead of other plantations like Timbabé, Bombe, Bahó, Tuplapla, or Sipopo. These were beautiful sounds that evoked images of distant lands in my mind when I was growing up. Today, since it’s not raining and I can see it properly, I feel as if I can finally enter into the enchanted castle of my childhood stories.”

  “I don’t know what you hope to find, Clarence, but in this case, the reality is at best … poor … to say the least.”

  “See those palm trees?” Clarence pointed ahead of her. “The men of my family replanted some of them. That makes me proud and comforts me. My father and my uncle grow old and bent, but the palm trees are still here, strong and straight up to the sky.” She shook her head. “To you it seems insignificant, but to me, it means a lot. One day they will all disappear, and there will be nobody to tell the generations to come about palm trees in the snow.”

  She pictured the family tree in her house and felt the same deep tingling that she felt the day she discovered the mysterious note between the letters and decided to call Julia.

  “I will. One day I will tell them all I know.” And will you also tell them what you suspect, but have yet to find out? she thought fleetingly.

  Iniko started the car, and they entered the plantation, which was full of life: men dressed in tracksuit bottoms and T-shirts, pushing wheelbarrows; small vans raising dust; a tractor transporting firewood; a woman with a basket on her head; one or another abandoned container. Then, the yard. On the right, two white storehouses or sheds with red roofs. On the left, a unit built with a white-columned veranda. The main building. The small archives building. Piles of cut firewood here and there. Bare-chested men slowly moving from one place to another. Clarence felt deeply emotional once again.

  They parked under the veranda beside several jeeps, and Iniko led her over to the nearest cocoa trees. Clarence saw some men picking cocoa with a long pole that had a sharp flat metal hook at its end, which allowed the men to separate the ripe pods from the green ones and to make them fall without touching the others.

  “Look, Iniko! My uncle brought two things back from Fernando Po: a hook and a machete that he still uses to prune and cut the thin firewood.”

  The cocoa trees seemed lower than she had imagined. Some men were walking with baskets on their backs; they collected the orange-colored pods from the ground using machetes and put them into the basket. They were wearing high Wellington boots. There were a lot of weeds all around. Other men carried the pods in wheelbarrows and moved them to a pile around which six or seven men were splitting them. They held pods in one hand and opened them with two or three gentle strikes of a machete, which was also used to extract the beans from inside. Almost all of them were young men. Their clothes were dirty. It was certain they spent many hours like that, opening pods and chatting.

  There was a sparkle in Clarence’s eyes. Jacobo and Kilian talked to her from afar: “When the cocoa had to be dried in the dryers, even if it was four or five in the morning, I didn’t miss it once in all the years that I was there.”

  She would tell her father and her uncle that cocoa was still being produced, and in the same way that they remembered. The cocoa dryers, although old and neglected, were intact. Time seemed to have stood still in that place: the same machinery, the same structure supporting the roofs, the same wood-burning furnaces. Everything worked in the same way and used the same techniques as in the middle of the twentieth century. There were not five hundred workers, nor the order or cleanliness that Kilian and Jacobo used to boast about, but it worked. It had been real and still wanted to be so.

  Neither they nor others like them were there now, but the cocoa was.

  Iniko was surprised by her interest in something that for him was nothing more than heavy work. They went around each and every corner of the main yard and the surrounding land, with Iniko giving her a detailed explanation of all the activities. After several hours, they crossed a small bridge with no rail and took the path back toward the vehicle. They arrived at the white-columned veranda, took the bags out of the car, and sat on the steps of the old employees’ house. Clarence was exhausted and sweaty, but happy.

  A man in his sixties came over. Iniko recognized him, and they talked for a while. The man, who looked familiar to Clarence, would not stop staring at her. Then she realized it was the crazy man who had followed her, making windmills with his arms, on her first visit to Sampaka. She found it strange to see him so calm.

  Suddenly, her curiosity increased as she thought she heard the words Clarence, Pasolobino … and Kilian!

  “Clarence!” Iniko exclaimed, motioning her over. “You’re not going to believe this!”

  Her heart began to beat quickly.

  “I’d like you to meet Simón. He is the oldest man on the plantation. He has been here for over fifty years. He can’t work anymore, but they allow him to come and go on the plantation as he pleases, gather firewood, and give orders to the young tenderfoots.”

  Simón looked at her with incredulity. He had fine incisions scarring his forehead and cheeks. He must be one of the few scarified ones left; he was the first one she had seen, and its effect was a bit frightening. But beside Iniko, she was not afraid.

  The man decided to talk to her directly, but he spoke in Bubi. Iniko whispered something in her ear.

  “He’s known Spanish since he was a child, but one day decided not to speak it anymore. He has never broken his promise. Don’t worry, I’ll translate for you.”

  Another person who keeps his promises, she thought, re
membering Bisila’s refusal to return to Sampaka.

  Iniko stood to one side of Simón and began translating his first sentences.

  “I have been watching you all the time,” said Iniko. “You remind me a lot of someone I knew well. Now I’m sure. You’re a relation of Kilian … maybe his daughter?”

  “I’m not his daughter.” On seeing the disappointment in his face, Clarence hurriedly explained, “I’m his niece, daughter of his brother, Jacobo. Tell me, did you know them well? What do you remember of them?”

  “He says that for years he was Massa Kilian’s boy. Kilian was a good man. He treated him very well. He also knew Massa Jacobo, but didn’t speak much with him. He wants to know if it still snows as much in Pasolobino—your uncle always spoke of the snow—and if they are still alive and how old they are now, and if Massa Kilian married.”

  “The two of them are still alive.” Clarence’s voice began to tremble in emotion. “They are over seventy and are both healthy. Our family still lives in Pasolobino. The two of them married, and each had one daughter. My name is Clarence. Kilian’s daughter is named Daniela.”

  The name Daniela surprised him. He was quiet for a few moments.

  “Daniela … ,” he murmured, after thinking for a couple of seconds.

  He looked at Iniko. He looked at Clarence. Besides the incisions, his face was also furrowed with wrinkles. Even so, it could clearly be seen that he was frowning. He looked at Iniko again and asked him something.

  “He wants to know how we met.” Iniko laughed, put a hand on Simón’s shoulder, and answered his question warmly. “I told him that we ran into each other here a few days ago, and that we later met up with Laha several times in the city.”

  Simón gave a small grunt and fixed his eyes on Clarence.

  “Yes, Simón. She also knows Laha,” said Iniko. “Yes. It was a coincidence.”

  “Why do you say that?” Clarence wanted to know. There was something in his face. She turned to Iniko. “I thought you didn’t believe in coincidence, that everything was the work of the spirits.”