Spring took much longer in the highest part of the Pyrenees than anywhere else. The first green never arrived in Pasolobino before May. In April, there were no flowers, only fields shorn by the last snows. The only hint of the new season was the sun rising a little earlier and setting a little later.
With Laha, it did not matter to Daniela whether it was cold or warm, whether the flowers began to adorn the meadows or not, or if the birds were livening things up with their trills. But the days and nights seemed so short.
Laha had arrived on Thursday night, and by Saturday, they still had not sated each other. Daniela had not found the right moment to tell him they could be cousins. Neither of them wanted to think of anything other than being together. The following day, Laha would leave, and they did not know when they would see each other again. They had given each other until summer to make definitive decisions on how to approach their future. For the time being, they clung to their intimate moments as if it were the last time they could be together, as if some unexpected twist of destiny could threaten their happiness in each other’s arms.
In the days before the return of life to the valley, time had stopped, and the expectant calm was altered only by the beating of their hearts. Daniela’s hand traveled over Laha’s chest, halting occasionally on his heart, waiting for it to slow. Laha turned his head, and Daniela raised hers to look at him. His forehead was beaded with sweat. Daniela thought he had the most beautiful face she had ever seen, with his special green eyes and caramel skin. Beside him, her skin appeared even whiter. She squeezed against his body as hard as she could and stayed in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth.
“Can you imagine what our lives would have been like a hundred years ago?” Daniela asked in a sleepy voice.
Laha laughed at the unexpected question.
“Well . . . in Bioko, I would get up very early to hunt antelope in the jungle or fish in the sea in my canoe.” He freed himself from Daniela’s embrace and put his hands behind his head. “Or I would have a job on one of the cocoa plantations . . . In any case, my beautiful wife, Daniela, would stay in the house and look after the vegetable garden and the children.”
Daniela lay beside him, bent her elbow, and cupped her head in her hand. “You’d probably have more wives.”
“Probably.” He grinned slyly.
Daniela gave him an affectionate pinch on the arm.
“In Pasolobino, I would do the same. But meanwhile, my darling husband, Laha, as well as hunting and fishing, would be in charge of work in the fields and the animals. He would fix up the house and the sheds, prune trees and get firewood ready for the winter, milk the cows, open up paths in the snow, and would rest for a little while to regain strength and”—she put a lot of emphasis on the final words—“satisfy his only wife.”
Laha burst out laughing. “This reminds me of a very old Bubi story, from the precolonial period.” He cleared his throat and began speaking slowly: “Many years ago, in a village called Bissappoo, lived a young married couple. Everything went fine at first, but as the days passed, the woman cooked and the man did not come to dinner, so she put the food in bowls and stored it in the dryer. When the husband returned, he went to bed without eating. This went on for days and days. Finally, the woman could not take it anymore and went to the wise old men of the village to denounce him. The men counted more than a thousand bowls, but did not make any decision, so the woman decided to go and find her husband. She went to the edge of the village and found him there, in the company of other men. Her husband called to her. She stopped and looked, but did not answer. He called to her again and asked, ‘What has he done to you, he who eats and doles out?’ The woman answered him, ‘Nothing, nothing. I am not the husband. You are the man. The food is in the dryer. It has been there for four days and is dry and with cobwebs. It is now dried out. It is now dried out.’”
Daniela remained silent for a moment. Laha lay on his side to face her. He put his arms around her and drew her toward him.
“I’ll never let your food go dry,” he whispered in her ear.
“I think I’m happy to be living in this age,” she joked. “I don’t like the idea of cooking all the time.”
Daniela got up on her knees and started to bite and caress all of Laha’s body, from his neck to his shoulder blades, down the middle of his back. She signaled him to turn over with a light touch so she could continue, although she now began at his feet and rose to his groin.
Laha began to moan in pleasure and stretched out his hand to stroke Daniela’s soft hair, swaying like a fine curtain on his delicate skin.
All of a sudden, he felt her stop.
Laha opened his eyes and raised his head a few centimeters to look at her. Daniela remained still, looking at something very closely.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, wanting her to continue.
“This mark here.” Daniela spoke in a whisper. “When I saw it before, I thought it was a scar, but now that I’m looking at it closely, it’s like a pattern.”
Laha laughed. “It’s from scarifying, like a tattoo. My mother did it to me when I was very young. It’s a Bubi tradition. Many people make deep incisions, especially on the face, but in the colonial period, the tradition was dying out and my mother didn’t want to disfigure me.” He paused.
“But . . . it’s . . . ,” sputtered Daniela. “It looks like . . . I saw one . . .”
“Yes, it’s an el?bó, a small Bubi bell to protect me from the evil spirits. Do you remember? I gave your father one for Christmas.”
Daniela had gone pale. Was not that instrument one of the clues that Clarence had told her about? Had not that man Simón told Clarence to look for an el?bó? She felt her chest tighten. She looked up. “My father has a tattoo exactly like it on his left armpit. Exactly the same.”
Laha was stunned. “Well, after so many years in Bioko, he probably decided to get a scarification—”
“It’s the same!” Daniela interrupted him. “Tell me, Laha, why did people get scarified?”
Laha listed the reasons to her aloud. “Let me see . . . As an artistic expression, as a differentiating mark from other races, for therapeutic reasons to get rid of pain . . .”
Daniela shook her head.
“. . . to mark a person for some specific behavior, for love . . . The slaves also scarified themselves in one form or another to be able to recognize each other when in exile . . .”
“To recognize themselves . . . ,” repeated Daniela in a low voice. She had a terrible premonition. She remembered the piece of photograph she had found on the floor in her father’s room. “Wait a minute.”
She went out and soon returned with the photograph and gave it to Laha.
“Do you know the woman and child?”
Laha sprung out of the bed. “Where did you get this?”
“So you know them . . .”
“The woman is my mother!” His voice trembled. “And the child she is holding is me.”
“Your mother and you,” repeated Daniela, hanging her head.