Palm Trees in the Snow

by Luz Gabás

  Laha arched his eyebrows.

  “I’m sorry,” she continued, giving him a sensual look, “we are not closer to a hotel room …”

  Laha smiled, relieved. “Let’s find one,” he suggested, holding her more tightly in his arms. Daniela fit into them perfectly. He felt like an impatient twenty-year-old. Why haven’t I met her before?

  “I can’t do that!” she exclaimed. “Tomorrow the whole valley would know …”

  “We haven’t done anything yet, and you’re already ashamed of me?” he asked, loosening his hug and feigning annoyance.

  “Don’t be silly!” Daniela threw her arms around his neck. “For the moment, we’ll have to settle for this.”

  Laha tightened his arms around her again and began to nibble her neck.

  “With this?” he murmured.

  “Yes.”

  Laha got his hands under Daniela’s layers of clothes and delicately caressed her back.

  “And this?”

  “Yes, and that as well.”

  Daniela slid her fingers through Laha’s hair and put her head back to allow more space for his lips along her neck, her throat, her cheeks, and her temples before returning to her lips. After a few delightful minutes, she sighed in resignation.

  “How about calling home and telling them not to wait on us for dinner?” she suggested. She wanted to make the most of their time alone, though she felt a little guilty when she thought about Clarence. “Where we parked, there is a very good restaurant.”

  They went back to the square, which opened like a balcony onto the slope of a hill, and stopped to watch the moon rise and glisten on the snow. Daniela moved closer to Laha to feel his heat. It would be a wonderful night. Every second spent with him made her more convinced that she had finally found her place in the world. Laha held her in his arms and breathed deeply. The village was silent, and the lampposts were weak. Beside this woman, solitude and darkness did not exist. He leaned down and kissed her again.

  Daniela groggily separated herself. Just then, she heard the sound of a car engine and, instinctively, moved away from Laha. A Volvo parked just beside their car, and someone called her name.

  “What a coincidence!” Julia walked over, followed by a friend.

  “Julia!” Daniela slowly gave her two kisses. “What are you doing here at this time of year? Don’t you normally stay in Madrid?”

  Julia shot a quick glance at Laha. “One of my sons decided to spend New Year’s Eve here and encouraged us to come.”

  The woman came over. Her blond hair was so light it looked white.

  “Ascensión, this is Kilian’s daughter.” Ascensión opened her eyes wide, and Julia explained, “Ascensión and I have been friends since Guinea. She married Mateo, one of your father’s old friends. He died a few months ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Daniela said, and gave her two kisses as well.

  “Thank you,” said Ascensión, her blue eyes blurred with tears. “Every year Mateo and I talked about coming up to the valley of Pasolobino, but for one reason or another, we never did.”

  “I convinced her to spend a few days with me, to see if it would cheer her up a bit.”

  Daniela noticed that Julia kept sneaking looks at Laha. She silently cursed her luck. She did not want anything to break the night’s spell.

  Laha came over and greeted the women.

  “So both of you lived in my country?” he asked with a friendly smile.

  Ascensión nodded, pressing her lips together to stop herself from crying. Julia half closed her eyes.

  “Laha … ,” she murmured.

  “Yes,” said Daniela. The last thing she wanted was another drawn-out conversation about Guinea. “He’s spending a few days with us. Clarence met him on her trip.”

  “Yes, she told me.” Julia felt a tightness in her chest. She fidgeted with her gloves. “She met your family, Laha, Iniko and Bisila …” She immediately regretted being so explicit.

  “Isn’t Bisila … ,” Ascensión began, raising her eyebrow.

  “… an unusual name?” Julia completed the question. “And where is Clarence?”

  “She wasn’t feeling well.”

  “Ah.”

  Julia could not stop looking at Laha. His thick hair, his wide forehead, his firm jaw, his rounded chin, his eyes … It was him. As clear as the snow that covered the fields. Clarence had found him, but was she sure? She looked at Daniela. The girl’s cheeks were reddened, and she had a special gleam in her big brown eyes. Would she know?

  A brief silence ensued.

  “And are you here sightseeing?” Daniela asked, just to say something.

  “We have a reservation in the restaurant.” Julia pointed to the building behind her and looked at Laha. “I hope you enjoy your stay in our valley.”

  Laha gave her a roguish smile and looked at Daniela out of the corner of his eye. “I can assure you that I will.”

  Daniela bit her bottom lip to stop from laughing.

  They watched the women enter the restaurant. Daniela took the car keys from her bag.

  “But weren’t we going to have dinner there as well?” Laha asked.

  “It’s just that I’ve thought of a better place,” she replied.

  With Julia and Ascensión there, she would not be able to even brush the tips of her fingers against Laha without them noticing. Her dream restaurant suddenly seemed small and stuffy.

  Julia found the perfect excuse to visit the House of Rabaltué the following day.

  “They are organizing a reunion of old friends of Fernando Po in Madrid at Easter,” she announced. “From our group, Manuel and Mateo will be missing, but it could be very nice. You should come.” She turned to Carmen. “You too, of course.”

  “Too many memories … ,” said Jacobo before addressing his brother. “Would you like to go?”

  Kilian shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  “Are their children also invited?” Clarence asked.

  “Of course, but you’d get bored, Clarence,” said Ascensión. “What would you do with a load of old codgers reminiscing over their youth?”

  “Oh, I love finding out things about my father’s past.”

  Daniela had tuned out from the conversation a while ago. Almost all that afternoon’s questions had begun with a Do you remember … and ended in a deep sigh. Both Ascensión and Julia reached for their hankies on several occasions, while Jacobo and Kilian pursed their lips and slowly bobbed their heads. Daniela wondered how Carmen could put up with anecdote after anecdote of a past she did not share, but there she was, with a pleasant smile fixed on her face. The same as Clarence, who did not miss the smallest detail. Daniela was convinced that if she had a pen in hand, her cousin would be taking notes. Daniela yawned and fixed her eyes on the flames. There was nothing left of the pile of logs that Kilian had prepared, and nobody seemed to be in any rush.

  She looked up, and her eyes met Laha’s. A pleasurable shiver ran through her, and she decided to take the chance to escape. Would Laha get the message?

  “I’m going to go and fetch some wood before the fire goes out,” she said, getting to her feet.

  “Do you need help?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  As soon as they entered the small woodshed, Laha’s kisses made her forget the boredom of the last couple of hours. For the moment, they would have to make do with those fleeting encounters.

  Inside the house, Clarence took mental note of everything. She was just as interested in what they said as in what they did not say. Julia had not stopped glancing from Jacobo to Laha and back again. Perhaps she was comparing them? And now that Laha had gone out, the woman’s attention continued to focus on Jacobo, as if there were nobody else in the room. She even thought she had seen her mother frowning on a couple of occasions.

  “Ascensión …” Clarence decided to steer the conversation. “What was the thing that you most hated leaving behind?”

  “Oh dear. Everything. The color,
the heat, the freedom … I noticed a big change when we came back to Spain.” Ascensión smiled for the first time that day. “I remember sometimes, I was just talking normally about how … well, how the coloreds lived, and many in our circle of friends looked at me in shock. Afterward, Mateo told me off for being so open.”

  “They must have thought we had grown up in the jungle.” Julia laughed.

  “I suppose it was hard”—Clarence coughed—“to say good-bye to so many friends.”

  Julia peered at Clarence. She was still searching … Julia saw Kilian and Jacobo shoot a quick glance at each other. They had yet to reveal Laha’s identity. She hoped that Ascensión was careful with her answers. The previous night it had taken Julia a lot of effort to make little of the fact that one of Bisila’s sons was staying in Kilian and Jacobo’s house. She put it down to coincidence, but she was not sure she had convinced her.

  “In fact, our friends were foreigners like ourselves,” Ascensión was saying. “Although I have asked myself once or twice what ever became of our cook and her family.”

  Clarence decided to divert the question to the men in her most innocent voice. “And you? Did either of you miss anyone when you left? Anyone special?”

  Kilian took a thin metal poker and stoked the embers. Jacobo looked at Carmen, smiled weakly, and answered, “As Ascensión has said, our real friends were all whites. Well, of course I’ve sometimes wondered about the wachimán Yeremías, or about Simón, who you met, or about one or another of the laborers … I suppose you’re the same, right, Kilian?”

  Kilian made a small movement with his head.

  And Bisila, Dad? thought Clarence. You never thought about her?

  The door opened, and Laha and Daniela entered, each of them carrying several logs. Clarence noticed that her cousin’s cheeks were red and her lips slightly swollen.

  “It’s freezing cold!” exclaimed Daniela in answer to Clarence’s scrutinizing gaze. “And the north wind is getting up.”

  Julia looked at her watch.

  “We’d better go. It’s quite late.”

  Carmen politely insisted that they stay a little longer. It was clear that she had not enjoyed the conversation at all.

  Kilian, Jacobo, and Clarence accompanied them to the car. Clarence took Julia’s arm, and they walked behind the others.

  “Tell me one thing, Julia.” Julia grew tense. “How do you think my father is looking?”

  “How … what?” asked Julia in surprise. “Well, I don’t know, Clarence … How would you be, in such a complicated situation?”

  Clarence looked for an answer to Julia’s question. How would she feel if she had abandoned a child thousands of kilometers away and, more than thirty years later, she saw herself forced to spend a few days with him under the same roof? Nervous, bad tempered, irritated, restless, and tetchy.

  Exactly what Jacobo had been like since Laha had arrived in Pasolobino.

  A strong and sudden gust of wind violently pushed them backward. Julia thought of a night when the unleashed force of a tornado drowned out the laments of a tragic event. She remembered Manuel’s downcast face when she told him the news and his shock on hearing it, the speed with which Jacobo’s act was covered up, the Jacobo she had loved so much …

  “Get into the car quickly, Julia!” Jacobo came over. “You’ll catch pneumonia.”

  “Fine, I’m coming.” Julia, overcome by the memories, clutched Clarence’s arm as the girl whispered a final question in her ear.

  “How could Dad have done something like that?”

  Julia blinked, perplexed. Had Clarence read her mind? She sat in front of the wheel slowly and murmured, “He also suffered.”

  Julia started the car, and a couple of seconds later, the Volvo was climbing the dirt track to the main road.

  Clarence watched the car until it disappeared into the cold night. Should she take Julia’s phrase as confirmation of her suspicions? A wave of bitterness trembled in her chest. How could he have suffered as well? She went over Jacobo’s life and could not find any evident signs of suffering, unless his bad temper was the result of an unhealed past.

  When New Year’s Eve was over, Clarence decided that she couldn’t wait another day to talk to Daniela. After the long interlude from her return from Bioko to Laha’s arrival, everything was going too fast. The signs were more than obvious. Daniela blushed each time her hands accidentally bumped against Laha’s, and he smiled like a fool in love. It was impossible that the rest of the family had not noticed it. And that glint in Daniela’s eyes … It was the first time she had seen it in her cousin.

  Clarence looked at her watch. It was almost dinnertime, and there was no one at home. Carmen had managed to convince Kilian, Jacobo, and a few neighbors to go for a hot chocolate. Laha and Daniela had gone shopping. It was impossible to get a minute alone with her cousin. When everyone went to bed, she decided, she would sneak into Daniela’s room.

  She started to prepare dinner without much enthusiasm. Carmen was a natural at cooking, be it for two or sixteen people. It took Clarence a lot of effort to even think about where to start. She had mastered only basic things like a salad or a Spanish omelet. She sat at the kitchen table and began to peel the potatoes. The house was silent. She heard voices coming from the street. The noise got louder, and she made out Jacobo’s strong voice.

  “Open the door, Clarence!”

  Clarence peeked out the window. Below, Kilian and Jacobo were carrying her mother up in their arms. She ran down to open the heavy door to the entrance and let them in. Carmen’s face was a picture of pain. A trickle of blood ran from her forehead down past her temple to her cheek.

  “What happened?” Clarence shouted nervously.

  “She slipped on a sheet of ice,” her father answered, panting. “She never looks where she is going!”

  Carmen moaned. They finally sat her down on an armchair in front of the fire. Clarence did not know what to do. She cursed Daniela’s absence and went looking for gauze to stanch the cut that was bleeding more and more.

  “Where are you sore, Carmen?” Kilian asked.

  With her eyes closed, his sister-in-law responded, “Everywhere … my head … my ankle … my arm. Most of all my arm.” She tried to move, and her face twisted in pain.

  “Where the hell is Daniela?” roared Jacobo.

  “She’s gone out with Laha,” Clarence answered. “I don’t think she’ll be too long.”

  “Is there no one else in this house except this Laha?”

  “Dad!”

  “We should call for a doctor,” Kilian said calmly.

  They heard laughs, and the back door to the kitchen opened. Daniela, followed by Laha, stopped dead on seeing the situation. She quickly got to work. Moving calmly and assuredly, she cleaned the wound, felt her aunt’s body, and gave her diagnosis.

  “She has broken her arm. It’s not serious. But she will have to be taken to Barmón hospital. I’ll make a sling so the journey won’t be too painful, but the sooner you go, the better.”

  Clarence hurriedly packed some things for her and her parents. Laha took Carmen in his arms and carried her to the car. The good-byes between everyone were quick, although Clarence used her cousin’s hug to whisper, “I’ve something important to tell you. It has to do with Laha.”

  Daniela frowned. Had she not had enough time to talk to her all these months? Now she had picked the most inopportune moment?

  “Are we going now or not?” shouted Jacobo impatiently through the window of his silver Renault Mégane.

  Daniela opened the car door to let Clarence in.

  “Is it Laha you have been missing all these months?” she asked in a low voice, her heart in her mouth.

  “What?” Clarence blinked. It took her a few seconds to realize Daniela’s error. She thought she was in love with Laha! “Eh, no, no. It’s not that.”

  Daniela breathed a sigh of relief. “Then everything else can wait.”

  Daniela prepared a quic
k dinner for the three of them. Laha asked Kilian some questions about the valley, and he answered with many amusing anecdotes that his daughter had not heard since she was a child. After dinner, they sat down together by the fire, waiting for Clarence’s call, which did not come. Kilian’s eyes were beginning to droop.

  “Go to bed, Dad,” Daniela told him. “If there is something important, I’ll get you.”

  Kilian agreed. He gave a good-night kiss to his daughter and patted Laha on the shoulder. “Enjoy the fire.”

  Daniela smiled, warmed by the flames and the thick embers. She got up and went looking for two glasses, which she filled with rancio wine.

  “This drink is only served on special occasions,” she whispered.

  The house was very big, and Kilian’s room was in the farthest corner. He could not hear them unless they shouted, but her low voice masked the nervousness she felt knowing that, in less than two minutes, she would be in Laha’s arms under the same roof as her father.

  “It’s stored in a small barrel where a small quantity of the original wine is kept over many decades. Only a few liters are made each year.”

  “And what’s so special about this occasion?” Laha moistened his lips with the liquid, which was intensely sweet and similar to brandy.

  “You’ll see soon enough.”

  The telephone rang, and Daniela ran to answer it. A few minutes later, Laha heard steps from the stairs that led to the upper floor. When Daniela came back, the last ash log had just split on the bed of embers licked by flickering tongues of fire.

  “Carmen will be in a cast for three weeks, so they will stay in Barmón. Clarence will come up to collect their things.”

  “I’m sorry I won’t be able to say good-bye to your uncle and aunt.”

  “Well, I hope you’ll see them again.” She paused. “Would you like to?”

  “Yes, because that would mean seeing you again.”

  Daniela refilled their glasses. She was going to sit down on the armchair beside Laha, but he took her wrist and drew her onto his lap.

  Laha took a sip of the wine and looked at Daniela with desire in his eyes. She leaned toward him and drank from his lips. Laha half closed his eyes, and from his throat, a purr of pleasure sounded when he felt the warmth of Daniela’s hands on his face, in his hair, on his neck. He rested a hand on one of her hips so he could hold her tighter, put the other under her sweater, and began massaging her stomach, rising slowly until he reached her breasts. Daniela moved away a few centimeters and looked at him expectantly. When he began to slowly caress her breasts, she bit her bottom lip, and her breathing got faster. Laha fixed his eyes on her face. Her porcelain cheeks were tinged an intense pink. Her enormous eyes looked at him with a mixture of desire and anticipation. Under normal circumstances, the young woman’s gaze was disconcerting. At that moment, a mysterious force surged from the depths of those two sources of light to draw him in like a defenseless insect. He wanted only to hover eternally around those beams, enjoying the challenge and the temptation before submitting to certain death …