Even worse.
He could not erase the terrible image of his beloved Daniela brokenhearted, alone and abandoned in the bed they had shared.
Not even in his worst nightmares could he have imagined that his white father would be the father of the woman he most loved in the world. He always suspected that in some part of Spain, his same blood flowed, the blood of the man who had fathered him, a man with a blurred face leaning on a truck.
He had even fantasized about the remote possibility that Kilian or Jacobo could have been his biological father. A fantasy that had been relegated to oblivion when his mind, body, and soul became devoted to Daniela.
But now everything had changed.
The hidden desire to meet his father had become a reality at the cost of his happiness.
And what was worse, the certainty that Daniela and he were brother and sister had not made the burning passion he felt for her fade in any way.
He had had to force himself not to stop the car, turn around, embrace Daniela, and tell her that he did not care, that they were not like brother and sister since they had not grown up together. In some African tribes, relations between siblings with the same father were allowed. Relations between siblings with the same mother were not. He and Daniela had not shared the same breast, and no one had to know they shared a father.
But they would know.
He had spent several days in Madrid, locked up like a caged lion, pacing round and thinking about what to do, hardly eating or drinking at all.
In the end, he had decided to take a flight to Malabo, look for his mother, and take his fury out on her.
His mother was not at home.
He went to the Malabo cemetery.
An old man with a friendly look came out to meet him. “Who are you looking for?”
“I don’t know if you can help me.” Laha was tired, very tired. “I’m looking for the grave of a man called Antón, Antón of Pasolobino.”
The man’s eyes opened wide in surprise.
“That grave has gotten a lot of visits lately,” he said. “Come with me.”
In the old part of the cemetery, the dead rested at the feet of the beautiful ceibas.
Laha recognized his mother’s figure leaning over a stone cross. She was putting a small bunch of fresh flowers on the grave.
On hearing steps, Bisila turned around and met her son’s recriminating gaze.
“Mom,” said Laha. “We have to talk.”
“Have you met Kilian?”
“Yes, Mom. I’ve met my father.”
Bisila came over to him and stroked his hands, his arms, and his face. She knew exactly what terrible marks love could imprint on the soul.
“Let’s take a walk, Laha,” she said. “I think there is something you should know.”
They began to wander through the trees and the graves.
Laha had met Kilian.
What would he look like now? How much would he have aged? Would the sun still cause copper to glint in his hair? Would he have retained his vigor?
Laha had met Kilian.
He had been able to look at those green-and-gray eyes.
Laha’s eyes in front of Kilian’s eyes.
Bisila stopped and scrutinized her son’s eyes. They transformed into Kilian’s, erasing distance and time, to tell her that it was time to admit the truth.
That their souls remained together.
Bisila smiled and told her son, “Laha . . . Kilian is not your father.”
15
Bihurúru Bihè
The Winds of Change
1960
Before the tremendous storm broke, when there was less than two hours to get to the capital of Niger, Kilian was pleased with his decision to fly from Madrid to Santa Isabel. Now the journey from Pasolobino to Sampaka took little more than a day. Admittedly, the trip was more expensive, and the four-engine plane had to make frequent landings to refuel, but the time saved was worth it.
However, when the Douglas DC-4 began to be violently buffeted by turbulence, the fifty passengers started screaming. His father’s story about the shipwreck that had nearly killed him came to his panic-stricken mind. While waiting for the plane to take off again from Niamey to Nigeria, Kilian, his face still pallid, finally decided that he would gladly accept a Cinzano vermouth or a glass of champagne from the flight attendant. Once in Bata, before getting aboard the substitute to the Dragon Rapide, a small low-winged, two-engine, angular-shaped corrugated sheet-metal junker, which would finally get him to the island, he had no doubt that, in the future, he would return to the tranquility of a ship like the Ciudad de Sevilla.
In the improvised airport of Santa Isabel, Simón, instead of José, was waiting for him. He was not at all like the teenager with the round sparkling eyes who had burst into his room on his first day of work on the plantation. After more than a year’s absence, Kilian could hardly recognize the well-built, handsome man decorated with fine incisions, crossing the long horizontal wrinkles and adding gravity to his expression.
“Simón!” exclaimed Kilian, taking off his jacket. “I’m pleased to see you again.” He pointed toward the scars. “I see you’ve changed.”
“In the end, I decided to get scarified with the marks of my tribe, Massa,” responded Simón, effortlessly lifting the heavy luggage. Kilian thought it was time for the young man to get a better job for himself. “Father Rafael doesn’t like it one bit . . .”
They got into a light-colored Renault Dauphine, Garuz’s latest purchase.
“Why didn’t ?sé come?” Kilian asked.
“You arrived at the same time his grandson was being baptized. He asked me to bring you, if you want, straight up to the Obsay yard.”
Kilian smiled. The August festivals in Pasolobino had finished two days before. The sounds of the orchestra were still resonating in his brain, and there was already another party on the go. Which grandson would that be? He had lost count, but it was odd that the celebration was on the plantation.
Then he remembered.
José’s daughter, the nurse, lived there.
“Is it the baptism of Mosi’s child?” he asked.
Simón nodded.
“His first! Mosi is over the moon. They’ve been married for years, and he was upset that they hadn’t had any children yet.” Confirmation of his suspicions made Kilian feel strange, similar to how he felt when he imagined the girl in the arms of her huge husband the first time he saw her, the day of her wedding. He imagined that that would be the first of many changes that had occurred during his long holidays, but this one especially vexed him. The child would unite his parents even more. He was overcome by a stab of jealousy.