Palm Trees in the Snow

by Luz Gabás

  Jacobo opened his mouth to counter him, but Laha raised his hands. “Don’t give me lectures on colonization, Jacobo. The color of my skin makes it obvious that my father was white. It could be either of you!”

  An uncomfortable silence ensued.

  Clarence hung her head, and her eyes filled with tears. If there was any remote possibility that Laha was her half brother, he could not have had a worse meeting with his biological father. Jacobo’s attitude was unforgivable. Why couldn’t he be like Kilian?

  Daniela rested her arm on Laha’s shoulder. Laha turned and looked at her sadly. His soul was wounded, and it was not something he normally talked about.

  “It’s a difficult subject,” said Daniela in a warm voice. “Even now, although we don’t realize it, we are all being colonized, in subtle ways, by networks woven by economic, political, cultural interests … It’s a different time.”

  That was Daniela, thought Clarence. She never got agitated. She always tried to express herself in the same tone of voice, sweet, quiet, rational.

  “I’m sorry for getting worked up,” said Laha, looking at Carmen, who waved her hand and smiled. She was more than used to heated discussions.

  Daniela took the spoon out of her cup, clinked it against the edge a few times to get the last drops of coffee off the metal, took a sip, and frowned. “For me, colonization is like the rape of a woman. And if the woman resists, the rapist has the cheek to say that the woman was not serious, that deep down she was enjoying it, and he was doing it for her own good.”

  Everyone froze. Daniela hung her head, a little embarrassed by her frankness.

  Clarence got up and began to clear the plates from the table. Jacobo brusquely asked for another coffee. Kilian tapped his fingers on the table. Carmen began to flick through the recipe book that Laha had given her, and she asked him a couple of questions.

  “Good,” Kilian said at last. “It’s Christmas. Let’s drop the hard topics.” He turned to Laha. “Tell us, how did someone from Bioko end up in California?”

  “I think it was my grandfather’s fault,” he said thoughtfully, cupping his chin in his right hand. “He was insistent that his descendants focus on their studies. He always said the same thing, over and over. My brother, Iniko, used to get very annoyed. He took his own meaning out of it.” He wagged his index finger in the air as he mimicked the voice of an old man. “‘The most intelligent thing that I’ve ever heard a white man say, a good friend of mine, is that the biggest difference between a Bubi and a white man is that a Bubi lets the cocoa tree grow wild, but the white man prunes it to get more out of it.’”

  Kilian choked on a piece of nougat.

  The twenty-sixth of December dawned to a clear sky and a bright sun that blinded when reflected off the snow. After two days shut up in the house with nothing else to do but eat, Laha, Clarence, and Daniela were finally able to go to the ski slopes.

  The girls had been able to get a ski suit for Laha, who felt ridiculous and clumsy in the rigid boots. Daniela gave him the basic instructions on how to walk on frozen snow and made sure she was close to him in case he fell. Beside him, she looked smaller. When they had managed to get the skis on him, Laha did not stop looking at her, terrified and holding on to her shoulders while she held on to his waist.

  Clarence watched them, amused.

  They made a good couple.

  Her cousin was concentrated on giving the proper instructions. Laha tried to have confidence in her, but his brain went one way and his body the other.

  After suffering through the first few runs, Laha decided he needed a coffee. Daniela went with him while Clarence took the chance to go down some of the pistes from higher up the mountain. She got onto the ski lift, almost grateful for the chance to be alone with the snowscape. As she went up the mountain, she noticed how the silence absorbed the voices and laughs of the skiers and calmed her mood. The brilliant white slope below her, the reflection of the nearby summits, the increasing cold on her cheeks, and the slight rocking of the lift gave her a sense of sluggishness, of vertigo, of unreality.

  During these moments of drowsiness, her mind filled with fragments of conversation and images like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. She found it hard to believe that Jacobo would have fallen in love with Bisila and then abandoned her with a small child. If it were true, her uncle Kilian must have been complicit. How could they have kept such an enormous secret? Was the moment of truth finally approaching? Was that why she was so nervous?

  The only way to free the tightness in her chest was to ski down the hardest slope at top speed, pushing her body to the limit, while the other two, completely oblivious to her suspicions, relaxed in the cafeteria.

  Laha felt happy talking to Daniela. He liked being with her. He liked how she held her cup with both hands to warm herself and how she blew on the white coffee to cool it down. As Daniela talked, her expressive eyes went from the coffee to him, to those at the table beside them, to those taking off their skis at the door of the cafeteria, and to what was happening at the bar. Laha deduced that it was not nervousness, but an ability to observe and analyze. How different she was from her cousin, he thought. Apart from being shorter and slimmer, Daniela seemed much more easygoing and rational than Clarence. She shared Carmen’s impulse to make those around her feel well—which he especially appreciated. Maybe for that reason he had not felt like a stranger for one moment since his arrival in Pasolobino. What was happening to him? He had just met her!

  “You’re very quiet,” Daniela commented. “Has your first time skiing left you that wrecked?”

  “It seems that it is not my forte!” Laha answered sadly. “And frankly”—he lowered his voice—“I don’t really understand what all the fuss is about. The boots are so tight that the blood can’t reach my feet!”

  “Don’t exaggerate!” Daniela gave a big laugh, and her face lit up.

  “Would you like another coffee?” he asked, getting to his feet.

  “Do you think you’ll be able to walk to the bar?”

  Laha made as if he were concentrating on the difficult task of slowly putting one foot in front of the other, and Daniela, amused, followed him with her eyes. She felt very comfortable with Laha, too comfortable. She bit her lip. It was Clarence who should be with Laha rather than she. Then why had she left them alone? Her cousin had her confused. She and Laha behaved like two good friends, maybe especially close friends, but they had not held each other’s hand, nor looked with passion at each other. And if Clarence was in love with Laha and his feelings were not the same as hers? It was difficult for her to believe that someone like him would have accepted the invitation to share a few days with her family. It was also possible that he did not know and that Clarence was waiting for the right moment … Whatever way you looked at it, the situation got more complicated. It was the first time in Daniela’s life that her knees felt like rubber, thousands of butterflies fluttered in her stomach, and a constant hot flush was on her cheeks. Not good.

  Laha brushed against her shoulder when he leaned down to leave the cup in front of her. He sat down, stirred the coffee with the spoon to dissolve the sugar, and asked her directly, “Do you like living in Pasolobino, Daniela?”

  “Yes, of course.” A slight hesitation had preceded her answer. “Here I have my work and my family. And as you can see, it is a beautiful spot.” If Laha did not stop staring at her, she would end up blushing. “And you, where do you feel you’re from?”

  “I don’t know how to put it.” Laha sat back and rested his chin in one of his hands. “I really do suffer an identity crisis. I’m Bubi, Equatorial Guinean, African, a bit Spanish, European by an unknown father, and an adopted American.”

  Daniela was sorry that this confession had brought on a thin veil of sadness.

  “Maybe in your heart you feel one option stands out above the rest,” she said.

  He looked outside and recovered his cheerful attitude. “Look, Daniela.” He tilted his head slightly. “How
is a black man meant to feel surrounded by so much white?” He stretched out his hand to point toward the snow. “Well, gray.”

  “You’re not gray!” exclaimed Daniela, raising her voice.

  “Who isn’t gray?” asked a red-faced Clarence, sitting down beside her cousin.

  They looked at the clock and realized that they had been talking for over an hour. For the first time in her life, Daniela lamented the presence of her cousin.

  Since neither of them answered, Clarence said, “Well, Laha. Are you prepared to make a second go of it?”

  Laha gave a pained expression and put out his arm to take Daniela’s hand. “No, please!” he begged her. “Don’t let her torture me anymore.”

  Daniela squeezed his fingers in hers. Laha had large, thin hands. You could see that they had not seen much physical work.

  “Don’t you worry,” she said, looking directly into his eyes. “I’ll look after you.”

  Clarence arched her left eyebrow.

  Well, well, thought Clarence as she walked toward the exit. Is it my imagination, or are my darling cousin’s eyes gleaming each time they meet Laha’s? What mischievous spirits! Perhaps they have reserved Laha for Daniela?

  Suddenly, something unexpected happened.

  Laha, walking clumsily in his boots, did not judge the height of the step between the building and the snow correctly. He slipped and had time only to grab on to Clarence, who, on turning to help him, fell on her back to the floor.

  Laha collapsed on top of her.

  With all the sunlight of that radiant day concentrated in one shaft of light on the eyes of her friend, his face a few centimeters from hers, Clarence’s stomach jumped. She no longer had any doubts …

  What had Simón said on the Sampaka plantation?

  He had recognized her from her eyes, the same as the men in her family, which from a distance appeared green, but up close were gray …

  In that same instant, Clarence recognized in Laha’s eyes her own, and Kilian’s, and Jacobo’s. Up to that very moment, she could have sworn they were green. But at this distance, she could clearly make out the dark little lines of the iris that made them a deep gray. Laha had inherited the family eyes!

  She felt like crying with relief, happiness, and fear for what she had finally discovered.

  And now that she knew it was Laha—and not another—whom she had gone to find on Bioko, in some part of her heart, she let surface her shame as the daughter of someone who had abandoned his own child and denied him the right to his space, beside hers, on the house’s family tree.

  13

  Boms de Llum

  Wells of Light

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Daniela zipped up her anorak.

  “My head still hurts a bit,” Clarence answered, resting her book on her lap.

  Laha looked at her, distraught. “You don’t know how sorry I am about the fall.”

  Daniela frowned. She hoped it was just the bumps and bruises making Clarence reluctant to join their drive, but she doubted it. When Clarence and Laha were on the ground, their faces so close together, Daniela had felt a sudden twinge of jealousy. Laha and Clarence had held each other’s gaze for much longer than necessary. And her cousin still seemed dazed.

  There were voices and laughing coming from the kitchen. Clarence rolled her eyes.

  “I’d go out the back door.”

  “I’m surprised they took so long … ,” Daniela remarked.

  Laha opened his mouth to ask what they meant, but Daniela made a gesture for him to hush. They could clearly hear the neighbors interrogating Carmen about Laha.

  Daniela pulled Laha’s arm. “We’d better go,” she whispered. “Don’t make a sound. Bye, Clarence.”

  Laha swallowed a laugh and, on tiptoe, followed Daniela. Clarence tried in vain to focus on her book again, but the neighbors’ nosy questions continued. How would the neighbors of Pasolobino have reacted if her father had brought his African son home decades ago? And now … what would happen when they found out he was another member of the family?

  Fernando Laha of the House of Rabaltué.

  Clarence sighed.

  She felt incapable of looking him in the eye for fear that he would guess her torment. She felt incapable of explaining something that was still perhaps nothing more than a coincidence. How was she going to ask her father? If it was not true, she would both insult Jacobo and wound Laha with false hopes. And if it was true, she could not imagine how she was going to get confirmation.

  And to top it all, those two, Laha and Daniela, seemed to be getting on like a house on fire. She remembered Daniela’s joke about the papal bull that was needed in times past to marry a cousin …

  Her heart gave a start.

  What was she thinking? Daniela was the first person she should have shared her suspicions with! She should know! Her silence was allowing the blossoming of …

  She closed her eyes, and her mind wandered to a beach passionately bathed in cyan waters. A man and a woman lay on the sand, enjoying each other’s bodies, oblivious to the hundreds of turtles who veered around them. In the distance, the songs of the birds and the chattering of the colored parrots could be heard, insistently repeating that what was an intensely clear blue was not the sea, but the sky, that what was white was a blanket of snow covering the meadows, that the turtles were not turtles but enormous rocks, and that the bodies that desired caresses were not those of Clarence and Iniko, but others.

  The sun trail got its name from the dozen villages that had been built over the centuries on the highest part of the mountain’s southern slope, which was bathed in sun from the first rays of dawn to the last at dusk. The houses of each village had been laid out in tiers so that all could enjoy the king of light, a precious gift in such a cold place.

  The narrow, battered road started at the valley’s main road, twisted round the slope until it reached the first village, cut a straight scar along the mountain, and wound back down to the last bend, the tightest one of all, tossing travelers back onto the main road again.

  During the journey, it was possible to feel as though time had stood still. Laha marveled at the Romanesque churches, the emblazoned gates, the houses with arched entryways and porticoes with crosses carved in stone. He found it incredible that, a few kilometers away, the tourist maelstrom was in full flow.

  “I didn’t think so many people lived in these villages,” Laha commented.

  “Many of the houses are second homes refurbished by the descendants of the original owners,” Daniela explained. “I call them the prodigal sons.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because when they visit, they insist on finding out about recent changes, then hold meetings to suggest ideas or protest what’s been done. As the days pass and the end of the holidays get closer, their energies weaken until they file back toward the city. And so on until the next holidays.”

  Laha remained thoughtful. Daniela’s words had had an impact on him.

  “I’m one of them as well,” he murmured with a heavy heart.

  Whenever he got to Bioko, the first thing he did was talk to his brother about the latest events. Then he would leave for California and his comfortable life. From far away, he sometimes had the feeling that Iniko judged him for not staying to help build their country.

  Daniela stopped her Renault Mégane in a small square almost completely surrounded by pretty little houses with doors and timbers stained in dark colors. She looked at her watch and saw that there was still a good bit of time before night fell.

  “In the upper part, there is a beautiful hermitage.” She pointed to a narrow paved alleyway that went up toward the forest and signaled him to follow her. “It’s abandoned, but it’s worth a visit.”

  While Laha prowled around the ruins, she contemplated the snowy landscape. After a while, he called to her, like a child who had just discovered treasure.

  “I don’t believe it!” He took her arm and hurried to the interi
or of the hermitage. “Look!” He pointed to a stone carved with a date.

  Daniela did not understand. “Yes,” she confirmed. “Fourteen hundred and seventy-one.”

  “It’s the oldest thing that I’ve touched in my life!” Daniela did not seem very impressed, so he added, “This is the year that the Portuguese Fernão do Po discovered the island of Bioko. Do you see? As a mason carved his stone, a sailor discovered an island! And now you and I are here, more than five hundred years later, joined by destiny! If that man had not discovered the island, we wouldn’t be here at this moment!”

  “What a way of summarizing history!” Daniela exclaimed, flattered to know that Laha felt euphoric in her company. “You’ve only left out saying that destiny has brought us together.”

  Laha came closer. He held out his hand toward her and moved away a copper-colored lock that partially hid her face. Daniela jumped due to his unexpected touch.

  “And why not?” he said hoarsely.

  At dusk on a calm, clear, and cold winter’s day, inside an ancient hermitage, awash in an intense ray of sunlight that filtered through a chink in the wall, Laha leaned toward Daniela and kissed her.

  All of her senses, which up to a few seconds before had been frozen by the snow, woke, startled, as his lips settled on hers, gently at first and then harder. She concentrated all her attention on those warm lips, full of sweetness. She parted her mouth so he could taste her, and their tongues brushed against each other with the promise of a deeper encounter, so their breaths could fuse in a single ardent mist.

  She raised her arms to circle Laha’s neck. The kiss lasted until the ray of sunlight faded and then disappeared. Laha moved away a few centimeters and gazed into her eyes.

  “I’m happy,” he said with faltering breath, “that I was unable to stop myself.”

  She moistened her lips and blinked, still shaken by his intensity, and gently pushed him back so he could rest against the altar stone.

  “I’m also happy,” she said, pressing her body against his and gripping the lapels of his coat. “I’m sorry about only one thing.”