“I can’t promise you that, Bisila,” answered Kilian obstinately. His hands caressed the skin on her head, her neck, and her shoulders and descended down her back to the curve of her hips. His voice became soft again, almost pitiful. “Having you so close and not being able to be with you . . .”
“I’ve told you once, and I’ll say it again. I’ll always be by your side”—Bisila raised a hand to stroke his cheek and kissed him so tenderly that Kilian shivered—“even if you can’t see me.”
At that moment, Kilian could not know that the period between May 1965 and April 1966 would not be the most unbearable time in his life, although it seemed so to him. Once more he sought refuge in the routine of work and was pleased that the year’s harvest was the most abundant seen in Sampaka in decades. Sleep and work: those were his tasks. Fortunately, the newlyweds, Mateo and Marcial, were occupied with their new lives in the city and left the plantation as soon as their day’s work was done, and Julia was looking after her two sons, Ismael and Francisco, full-time. Kilian no longer had to look for excuses to abandon his social life completely. He could count the minutes until Bisila’s mourning period—and his own—came to an end, totally removed from the events changing history around him.
Harvesttime came on top of the pruning tasks. José and Kilian walked along the wide cocoa-tree rows, supervising the laborers’ work. In each row, the trees were planted the same distance from each other. They rose identically, like fertile goblets, with well-balanced crowns and new shoots, stumps, and intertwined branches. Not far from them, they heard the voice of Simón, who laughed and joined in songs with the Nigerians in his brigade.
Kilian walked on, deep in thought.
The world-renowned Sampaka cocoa came from the daily work of hundreds of workers who spent their days cutting weeds, regulating the shade of the nurse trees, replacing the diseased trees, curing accidental cuts, grafting different varieties of cocoa, and harvesting every fortnight when the trees bore fruit.
And they could always be heard singing.
Some men had spent years without seeing their wives, their children, their relations. They worked from dawn till dusk. They got up, went to the fields, ate, continued their work, had dinner, sang, and talked until they went to their barracks—all the same, in ordered rows like the cocoa trees—certain that a new day would swallow them up in its routine. The only thing they hoped for out of life was to get paid well so they could send money to their home country and give their families a better life.
And they still continued singing.
Day after day. Month after month. Season after season.
It had been eleven months and one week since he had seen Bisila.
Not once had he felt the urge to sing.
“You’re very quiet,” said José. “What are you thinking about?”
Kilian tapped the ground a few times with his machete. “You know, ?sé? I’ve been here for many years, and I’ve never felt like a stranger. I’ve done the same as the rest of you. Work, eat, have fun, love, suffer . . .” He thought of his father’s death and Bisila’s absence. “?sé, I think the biggest difference between a Bubi like you and a white man like me is that a Bubi allows the cocoa tree to grow freely, but the white man prunes the tree to get the most out of it.”
José nodded. As it grew, the cocoa tree produced a large quantity of shoots that had to be cut so as not to suck the sap. As the years passed, the trees began to deform. For that reason, pruning started when the tree was young. If too many branches were cut, the tree exhausted itself. If not enough dead, diseased, or badly formed branches were cut and enough suckers and the remains of last year’s crop removed, the sun would not be able to get to the trunk, and the tree could rot until it died.
After a while, José said, “There are now blacks who prune like whites and blacks who want the cocoa tree to grow at its own pace. There are also whites who continue pruning and whites who abandon their plantations. Tell me, Kilian, which one are you?”
Kilian considered the question. “I’m a man from the mountains, ?sé”—he shrugged, looking him straight in the eye—“who has spent thirteen years among tropical tornadoes.” He shook his head in resignation. “For that reason, I know only one thing is certain. You cannot leash nature. Cocoa trees are pruned, but the trees continue to generate new shoots and disorderly branches in such quantity that there aren’t enough machetes to deal with them. The same as the waters of the rivers and gullies, ?sé. The storms increase their flow, and they burst their banks.”
“There is a Spanish saying that the waters always return to their original course,” responded José.
Kilian smiled briefly. “Tell me, mi frend, do you know a saying that could explain how those waters felt while they were free?”
?sé remained thoughtful. Then he answered, “Wasn’t it a big white chief who said, ‘Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth’?”
The workday was coming to an end when the nightmares made a sleeping Waldo, lying on a pile of empty sacks, moan.
Nobody mistreats ?wassa. The forest is forbidden to those who are not from here. It’s only ours. The great spirit of ?bassa thanks you, mysterious man of the forest, who . . .
“Wake up, Waldo!” The lad shot up, startled by Kilian’s shout. “I don’t know what has happened to you and Simón lately, but during the day, you seem sorrowful.” Someone cleared their throat behind him, and he turned. “Ah, I was just talking about you. Don’t tell me that you were also taking a nap . . .”
Simón gave him an enigmatic smile.
“Well, you’ll have to tell your girlfriends to let you rest a bit,” Kilian continued, “if you want to get paid. Work comes first.”
Simón sighed. “She’s back,” he said flatly. “She’s returned to work in the hospital.”
He added slyly, “I hope you don’t fall ill again . . .”
Kilian bolted in the direction of the main yard. Will she want to see me? he asked himself. Will she have thought about me as I have thought about her? Why didn’t she tell me herself that she was back?
Bisila was not in the hospital. Impatience consumed him. He began to circle the main entrance, wondering where he could find her.
He decided to ask in the upper part, near the Obsay yard limits. If Bisila had taken up her job again as plantation nurse, Garuz would probably have given her a house there. He took off with a determined step, holding back the impulse to run. The sweat began to bead on his forehead. He felt anxious and happy to see her again. A year!