Palm Trees in the Snow
Luz Gabás
Tonight you both will love with desperation because you know it is going to be the last night you spend together. Never again will you see each other.
Never.
It will not be possible.
You will caress and kiss with the intensity of two anguished souls filling themselves with each other’s taste and touch.
The tropical rain falls furiously on the green railing of the outdoor passageway that leads to the bedroom, drowning out your rabid moans. Lightning flashes, momentarily gaining victory over darkness.
“Let me see you, touch you, feel you for just a few more minutes.”
In a corner of the room, two worn leather suitcases. Resting on the back of a chair, a raincoat. An empty wardrobe with the doors ajar. A hat and a photograph on the table. Beige clothes on the floor. A bed converted into a love nest by the mosquito curtain surrounding it. Two bodies tossing together in the dark.
That will be it after eighteen years.
You could have defied the danger and decided to stay.
Or you could never have gone. You would have avoided the rain, the damned rain. It insists on punctuating the saddest moments of your life.
You would not have suffered such a dark night.
The drops rebound on the windowpanes.
And she . . .
She could not have set her eyes on you when she knew it was better not to.
She would not have suffered this cruel clarity.
The rain lashes, infusing the scene with melancholy. It belongs to no one.
You have enjoyed many nights of calm, tender, mystical love. You have enjoyed the forbidden pleasure. You have been free to love each other in plain sight.
But you have not had enough.
Pull off your skin with your nails! Bite! Lick! Steep yourselves in each other’s scent!
Take her soul and give her your seed, though you know it will not germinate.
“I’m going.”
“You’re going.”
“You will remain in my heart.”
Forever.
Two sharp, quick knocks on the door, a pause, and then two more. It is the agreed-on signal. José is on time. You have to hurry or you will miss the plane.
You cannot hurry. You cannot separate yourselves from each other. You only want to cry. Close your eyes and remain in this state of unreality.
The time destined for you has elapsed. It will not return. You have already talked. There will not be tears; things are the way they are. Perhaps in another time, in another place . . . But you did not decide where to be born, to whom or to what to belong. You only decided to love each other, knowing that sooner or later this day would come.
You get out of bed and begin to dress. She remains sitting with her back against the wall, hugging her legs, her chin resting on her knees. She studies your movements and closes her eyes to imprint in her memory each detail of your body, your hair. When you finish dressing, she gets up and walks toward you, wearing only a necklace made from a fine leather cord and two shells. She has always worn that necklace. One of the shells is a cowrie, a shiny kiss-curl the size of an almond. The other is a fossilized Achatina shell. She takes off the collar and puts it round your neck.
“They will bring you good luck and prosperity on your journey.”
You circle her waist with your strong arms and draw her toward you, inhaling the smell of her hair and skin.
“My luck ends here and now.”
“Don’t despair. Wherever you are, you will be part of me.” Her big eyes, though filled with sadness, convey great certainty. She wants to believe that not even death will separate you, that there is a place where you will be together again, with no time, no pressure, no restraints.
You place your fingers on the necklace’s shells. The cowrie is as smooth as her skin and sparkles like her teeth. The opening evokes a perfect vulva, life’s entrance and exit.
“Will this Achatina also deliver me from the cloven-hooved demons?”
She smiles, remembering your first time together.
“You’re as strong as a ceiba and as flexible as a royal palm. You will withstand gusts of wind without cracking, roots firmly planted in the soil and leaves reaching to the sky.”
Again two sharp, quick knocks on the door, a short pause, and another two knocks. A voice rises above the storm.
“I beg you. It’s very late. We must be going.”
“I’m coming, ?sé. One minute.”
One minute and good-bye. One minute that asks for another, and then another.
She goes to dress. You tighten your hold.
“Stay like that, naked. Let me see you, please.”
Now she does not even have the necklace to protect her. And you have nothing to give her?
On the table, the hat that you will never need again and the only photo you have of the two of you together.
You take one of the bags, place it on the table, and take out a pair of scissors. You fold the photograph, separating your image from hers, and you cut it.
You hand her the fragment with you leaning against a yard truck.
“Here. Remember me just as I am now, in the same way that I’ll remember you.”
You look at the other half, where she is smiling, before putting it in the pocket of your shirt.
“It kills me not to be able to . . . !” A sob prevents you from continuing.
“Everything will be fine,” she lies.
She lies because she knows that she will suffer each time she crosses the yard, or enters the dining room, or places her hand on the white banister of the elegant stairs. She will suffer each time she hears the sound of an airplane overhead.
She will ache each time it rains like tonight.
“Everything will be fine . . .”
You hold her tightly in your arms, thinking nothing will be fine from now on.
In a few seconds, you will take your bags and your raincoat. You will passionately kiss her. You will walk toward the door. You will hear her voice, and you will stop.
“Wait! You forgot your hat.”
“I won’t be needing it.”
“But you will remember who you were for many years.”
“You take care of it. Remember what I have been to you.”
You will return to her and kiss her with the warm, impenetrable, and languid tenderness of a final kiss. You will look in her eyes and grit your teeth to avoid crying. You will softly stroke each other’s cheek. You will open the door, and it will close behind you with a slight sound that to you will seem like a gun going off. She will rest her head on the door and cry bitterly.
You will go out into the night and melt into the storm, which refuses to abate for even a second.
“Thanks, ?sé. Thank you for your company all these years.”
They are the first words you speak after leaving the bedroom on the way to the airport. They seem strange, as if it were not you pronouncing them. Everything seems strange: the road, the buildings, the metal terminal, the men who pass by.
Nothing is real.