Palm Trees in the Snow

by Luz Gabás

  They drove back to the plantation along dirty, rubbish-filled, and bloodstained streets. As the car drove along, they felt the mistrust of many passersby.

  Garuz asked Simón to go faster. “I don’t know, Kilian,” he murmured, deep in thought. “I don’t know if we are taking a great risk. Even the television people have now left …”

  Simón braked sharply. A small woman walked along the roadside, carrying a large bundle of clothes on her head. Simón turned to Kilian, pleaded with his eyes for him to intercede with Garuz to pick up the woman.

  Kilian got out of the car. “Oba … What are you doing here all alone?”

  “I’m going to live with Nelson. There is no work in the store, Massa. I hope the big massa won’t mind.”

  “Come on, we’ll take you.”

  Oba and Kilian got into the car. She was surprised to recognize Garuz sitting beside the driver. Garuz did not turn around. He did not open his mouth either. He could not care less what the girl did or did not do, although … He straightened himself up in his seat. If women were the reason why men like Kilian and Nelson had stayed with him, he found it as good a reason as any. Also, there was no lack of laborers’ houses on Sampaka.

  From summer onward, the tension decreased and the mood calmed down. In October 1969, new bilateral agreements were signed, and Spain guaranteed a multimillion-dollar loan to Guinea. Taking advantage of the return of some colonists to their properties, and after several meetings with them, Garuz decided to attend a gala dinner in the casino.

  After the manager insisted it would be a good idea to rub elbows with the upper echelons of the country’s administration, Kilian and Gregorio were left with no choice but to accompany him. Kilian had reluctantly agreed. He did not want to go at all, but he would do anything as long as it meant he would be able to stay longer. He reminded Waldo to have several dozen eggs and some bottles of brandy ready to avoid problems at the checkpoints and borrowed a dark suit and a bow tie from Garuz.

  Entering the casino, Kilian noticed to his amazement that only two things had changed in the main room. First, most guests were natives, and second, military uniforms almost outnumbered dress suits. Otherwise, the band played on, and the many waiters ensured that everyone was looked after perfectly.

  Garuz, escorted by Gregorio and Kilian, greeted many of those present with exaggerated friendliness, especially those introduced as the director general for security, a sturdy man with a severe look, and the secretary of defense, serious and pensive, wearing a major’s uniform. Kilian held out his hand and felt a shiver, not a smile to be seen.

  The sound of laughter came from the door leading to the outside terrace, where the bandstand was. Garuz looked in that direction and smiled in relief to see a group of Europeans enjoying the party. Kilian had the feeling he had seen them before, but he could not remember where. Garuz greeted them, exchanged a few words with two men, and then went off with them to a small room.

  “Hello,” said a voice by his side. “If you have come with Garuz, I suppose you must be one of his employees.” He put out his hand. “I’m Miguel. I work in television.” He gestured toward the others. “We all work in television. Some in broadcasting and others in the studios.”

  Kilian looked at the bright-eyed young man with a short beard and remembered the night a drunk man had accused Miguel of blowing cigarette smoke in his face.

  “I’m Kilian. Yes, I work in Sampaka. I thought all of you from the television were gone.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gregorio beginning to chat with two of the young men from the group. Kilian judged he was trying to show off with stories of his colonial experience.

  “They had to hightail it out of here after the March coup, but afterward, they sent us back. And we’re still here … for the moment.”

  “How are things in Spain? Have they got any idea about what is going on in Guinea?”

  “Well, trust me when I say,” replied Miguel, “that apart from family and friends, nobody has any idea about anything. The press only praises Spain’s good work. But really, no one on the street talks about it.”

  “Yeah …” Although Kilian could have guessed the answer, it still did not make it less disheartening. “How do you know Garuz?”

  “Garuz and almost all the businessmen are chasing after us to get us to write checks so that they can give us Guinean pesetas in return. We spend them, and they are happy. They are afraid the new currency has no value. So you know, if you have money …”

  Kilian felt a camaraderie with the man. It had been ages since Kilian had spoken to anyone outside Sampaka.

  “Thanks,” he answered, “but my salary goes into a Spanish bank. I only keep a bit for day-to-day expenses.” He lit a cigarette. “And what do you do here exactly?”

  “I’m in charge of maintaining the network, up there, on the mountain. On my days off, I come down to the casino to play tennis. Look at that man over there.” He pointed to a very tall, well-built man a short distance away. “He’s the consul from Cameroon. He’s always looking for me to play with him.” He laughed. “Probably because he always beats me. Well, and you? How long have you been here? Me, not very long, but you have the look of someone who must be a real expert on Fernando Po, am I right?”

  Kilian smiled sadly. Yes, he had a special knowledge of the island and its peoples, but if Miguel knew what he had gone through, his words would not be tinged with envy.

  For a long while, they talked amicably about their lives and the political situation. Miguel was blunt: in the street, he always felt unsafe, so he limited himself to going to work and enjoying the facilities in the casino, where he insisted Kilian should go to pass the time and ease the loneliness of the plantation.

  “I’m not alone,” explained Kilian. “I have a wife and children.”

  The people close to him found his situation completely normal, but saying it aloud to someone new gave him a pleasant feeling.

  “They are still here?” Miguel raised his eyebrows, surprised. “The majority of the colonists still here have sent their families home.”

  “Well … she is, in fact, Guinean. Bubi.”

  “And what will you do if things turn ugly for you?”

  “I don’t know.” Kilian sighed. “It’s complicated.”

  “Oh …”

  A waiter approached to tell them they would be serving dinner in a few minutes. Garuz joined the group again, and together they went toward the dining room.

  “Do you know, Kilian,” said Miguel as soon as he had sat down beside him at one of the round tables, “the first time I came here, I didn’t know what to do with so much cutlery. In Spain I don’t get the chance to move in such sophisticated circles.”

  “I understand you perfectly!” Kilian laughed heartily.

  Suddenly, the smile froze on his lips, and he looked at Gregorio, who had sat down three or four seats away from him. The other was as surprised as he.

  A spectacular woman dressed in a fine white crepe dress on the arm of a man with a pockmarked face entered the dining room toward one of the tables close to them. She crossed the space between the entrance and Kilian and Gregorio’s table, swinging her hips and cackling as if what her partner was saying were the funniest thing in the world.

  “Will you look at Maximiano,” Garuz commented, recognizing the head of police.

  Kilian lowered his gaze when Sade shot them an arrogant look filled with hate. Later, when she sat in her seat at the table with the heads of national security, including the major they had met when they arrived, she did not stop flirting and murmuring in Maximiano’s ear, who looked at them, frowning on a couple of occasions.

  “So you know them?” he asked his partner.

  “The one with the dark hair with copper highlights abandoned me for another after leaving me pregnant.” Sade paused. “And the other, the one with the mustache, wanted to take me by threating me with a pistol.”

  Maximiano launched a murderous look at the whites’ table.

>   “I don’t know what you’ve done to my uncle,” said a young man sitting beside Kilian, “but I’m happy not to be in your shoes.”

  “Your uncle?” Miguel asked, surprised, leaning across Kilian.

  “Didn’t I tell you I had family in high places?”

  “Excuse me, Kilian. This is Baltasar, a television cameraman. He studied in Madrid and lives and works there. And this is Kilian”—he winked and smiled faintly—“one of the few colonists who hasn’t left yet.”

  Kilian did not like being called a colonist, but he understood that Miguel had not said it maliciously. Kilian shook Baltasar’s hand.

  “So you are Fang … ,” he commented finally.

  Baltasar raised his eyebrow. “Does it bother you?”

  “No, not for the moment.”

  Kilian was sorry he had said that. The truth was he had just met the young man, and he had made a good impression on him. Baltasar looked at him quizzically, opened his mouth, but changed his mind. Then Miguel said, “Kilian’s wife is Bubi …”

  “And … ?” Baltasar raised the palms of his hands. “Ah, I see now. Yes, an understandable simplification. Bubis are good, Fangs are bad, is that it?”

  Kilian said nothing.

  Baltasar clicked his tongue and poured himself a glass of wine in front of the glaring disapproval of the waiter behind him. Baltasar lowered his voice. “Let me tell you something, Kilian. Spain has awoken the capricious, resentful, and vengeful monster, not me. At first Macías seemed fine to them, and when they realized their mistake, they tried to overthrow him in a coup d’état, just when he was at the height of his power. And now, if they could, they would kill him. Do you know what Mr. President fears most? Death. Do you know that he punished one of his government delegates for coughing? He accused him of trying to pass a virus to the head of state. And what have the civil servants learned? They take long vacations until they are completely cured.” He laughed. “This is surreal! Macías does whatever it takes to keep death away. He will bribe, applaud betrayal, support his loyal followers, and kill on the spot anyone he thinks, suspects, or feels is against him. So, my friend, as long as Spain refuses to accept part of the blame in his election as president, it won’t be free of sin in the degeneracy that will follow until one of his lackeys turns on him.”

  “You shouldn’t be telling us these things, Baltasar,” whispered Miguel. “You’re putting yourself at risk.”

  “I’ll be going soon, thankfully. I leave politics to my relations.” He picked up the menu that was on the tablecloth. “Let’s see what dishes they’ll surprise us with today.”

  Kilian was pleased with the change in subject and joined in on the jokes about the elaborate menu, consisting of poultry soup, poached eggs gran duque, lobster with tartar sauce, cold sea bass Parisian, English-style roast chicken, and tropical fruit salad. Bit by bit, he relaxed, and even had to admit that he was enjoying the buzz brought upon by Miguel’s and Baltasar’s company and conversation. He was especially curious about Baltasar, who had studied in Spain and had then gotten a full-time position through public examination in the television industry and who had no intention of moving from where he now lived.

  “Miguel has told me that in Spain, nobody talks about Guinea anymore.”

  “I suppose,” said Baltasar, “it’s in the interest of the politicians over there that whatever happened here is forgotten as soon as possible.” His tone became sarcastic again. “An exercise in democracy. The dictator Franco promoted a referendum and elections in Guinea, something unthinkable in his own state.”

  Kilian frowned. At no point had it occurred to him to see the last few months from that perspective. He felt a little ashamed. He had become so involved in life on the island that he had not paid attention to what was happening in his own country. He had never thought about the fact that Spain was a dictatorship. His life revolved around work and everything else. He would have been incapable of explaining to anybody how the dictatorship was seen or publicized in his small Spanish colony.

  “What’s your life like in the capital?” Kilian asked.

  “I’ve spent so many years away that Madrid has become my home.”

  “And you haven’t had any problems?”

  “Well, apart from the fact I stand out among so many whites”—he laughed—“none. But many Guineans arriving in Spain seeking freedom find that the motherland has become the wicked stepmother. Spanish passports are no longer being renewed for native Guineans, so they become stateless. It didn’t happen to me because I’m married to a Spaniard.” Baltasar shrugged.

  Kilian could not hide his surprise. For a few seconds, a new hope dawned in his heart. He would talk to Bisila and convince her to go with him. They could start a new life somewhere else. If others had done it, why not them?

  Just at that moment, the waiters finished clearing the plates and offered the guests whiskey and soda. The band opened its session out on the stand with a James Brown number, and people began to leave their seats to go outside to the terrace. Gregorio got up and said something to Garuz. Kilian heard him answer, “I don’t know if it’s wise to go alone.”

  “Where are you going?” asked one of the television men.

  “Off to see what’s open out there.”

  “Can we come with you?” another asked. “We’d like to get to know a bit more of the city by night …”

  Gregorio shrugged and began heading off, followed by the other two.

  “Those two don’t miss a trick,” said Miguel, smiling.

  “They should be careful,” warned Baltasar, indicating the table where his uncle and the rest of the heads of national security were. “They don’t like our women to go off with whites as before.”

  Gregorio left Anita’s alone. His companions had left earlier. He walked a little unsteadily to his car. There was not a soul in sight. He opened the door, but before he could get into the car, a hand with an iron grip held him by the shoulder. In seconds, other hands forcefully grabbed him, put a sack over his head, then shoved him into a car that left at top speed to some unknown destination.

  The car stopped. They got him out roughly and made him walk a few steps. He heard the metallic and squeaky sound of an iron gate being opened. In total silence, they jerked the sack off his head. It took him a few seconds to determine where he was. The five or six men broke out laughing when they saw his expression.

  He was in front of an open grave beside several tombs. He began to break out in a cold sweat. They had brought him to the cemetery! The urine began to flow down the insides of his thighs.

  “See this hole, Massa Gregor?”

  They knew his name. The darkness prevented him from seeing their faces. He saw only eyes filled with bloodlust. And what would it matter if he recognized any of them or not?

  “Look, we have dug it for you. Yes, just for you.”

  “Do you think it will be big enough?”

  “Why don’t we check?”

  Laughter.

  The first blow was in the back. The second, level with his kidneys. Then, punches all over. Finally, a push that sent him into the grave, then some threatening voices. “This is just a warning, white man. You won’t know when, but we’ll be back for you.”

  Again, the squeaking sound of the gate.

  A good while passed before Gregorio could drag himself out of the grave, groaning from the pain of the blows, to cross the cemetery in silence with his spirits broken, and to get his bearings. When he reached his car, a few meters from the club, the cuts on his face had stopped bleeding, but he had already made a decision.

  When he got to Sampaka, he woke up Garuz and asked for his wages.

  As dawn broke, Waldo took him to the airport and Gregorio disappeared off Fernando Po without saying a single good-bye.

  Miguel and Baltasar gathered up the material and stored it in the metal cases.

  “Thanks for coming with us to film the cocoa production process, Kilian,” said Miguel. “It was very enlighte
ning.”

  “If you had only seen it a couple of years ago … Now it’s pitiful to look at. With the few of us who are left here, we can’t even keep the weeds under control. And the production isn’t even a tenth of what it used to be.” A few drops of rain began to fall from the sky, and the three quickly got into the vehicle.

  The shortest and safest route to the block of flats where the television crew were staying passed through the residential district where the house of Julia’s parents had been. The couple of times that Kilian had passed in front of the Factoría Ribagorza, he had felt his heart twinge, hoping that the door would open and Emilio or his daughter would come out.

  Without any warning, the street became filled with youths running in different directions. Kilian had a bad feeling. Without slowing down, he drove on, and a few meters from Emilio’s old store, he stopped.

  “Oh my God! What are they doing?”

  Dozens of youths were destroying the shop. Some broke the windows with thick wooden bars. Others went inside to come out with their arms full of goods. Suddenly, they saw them pushing out a white man, probably the new owner, João the Portuguese, who, with his hands together, pleaded with them not to do anything to him. Ignoring his pleas, they began to give him a brutal beating. His blood spattered the ground. Without a second thought, Kilian shot out of the car and ran toward them, shouting and waving his arms.

  “Stop! Stop at once!”

  He immediately realized his mistake. A tall boy with a shaved head turned and smiled at him. “Here comes another! Get him!”

  With his heart beating wildly, Kilian remembered his lessons from the plantation.

  “Leave that man alone at once!” he shouted firmly.

  “And why should we, white man?” The young man with the shaved head approached him, swaggering in arrogance. “Because you say so?”

  In a second, Kilian saw himself surrounded by several men, most of whom could not be older than twenty. He felt his confidence desert him.