When he got to the first barracks, some music drifted over to him. It was impossible not to be affected by the rhythm of the drums. They were dancing a balele. He was soon able to make out a large group of children dressed up in green and red dancing to the beat of the drums, in groups, individually, or with their mothers. They looked happy in their celebration. Kilian had managed to understand and share with the Africans their idea that any reason was good enough to dance.
He stopped just a few meters away from the party and allowed himself to become infused with the children’s happiness. One of them, about five or six, stared at him with a smile on his face, and Kilian recognized Iniko under the green hat. For a second, he saw Mosi in his features, and he returned the smile with sadness. Iniko looked at him attentively while moving a pendant that hung from his neck with his hand. The boy turned and ran in the direction of a woman carrying a load in her arms and began to obstinately pull at her skirt until she looked in the direction he was pointing to.
Bisila’s eyes met Kilian’s, and the hearts of both somersaulted in their chests.
The drums repeated the same rhythm over and over again. Bisila’s eyes filled with tears as soon as she saw Kilian, tall and muscular, with his shirt rolled up above his elbows, with his well-cut, dark, copper-highlighted hair, his skin bronzed by the sun and some small wrinkles framing the green of his eyes.
Kilian stood still.
There was Bisila, wrapped in a turquoise-blue tunic that could not hide the new fullness of her features. A matching scarf covered her head and showed off the deep expressiveness of her enormous eyes.
He could not stop staring at her eyes.
He began to walk toward her slowly and then saw that she was carrying a baby, only a few months old, in her arms. When he was beside her, Bisila spoke to him softly, “I want you to meet my son.”
She removed the white cloth covering the child, and Kilian could see that he was a lighter color than the other children, like coffee with a dash of milk.
“His name is Fernando Laha.” Kilian felt a knot in his stomach. “He was born in January, but you can see he has the features and eyes”—her voice broke—“of the men of the House of Rabaltué.”
Kilian gazed at the baby in shock. “He could have been mine, Bisila,” he murmured.
“He could have been yours, Kilian,” she repeated sadly.
Kilian asked her to let him hold the child in his arms. It was the first time he had held a baby, and he was clumsy. He remembered the snakeskin hanging in the square in Bissappoo so that all the newborn children could touch it with their hands.
“Have you taken him to touch the boukaroko’s tail?” he asked.
The little Fernando Laha woke up and looked at the man oddly, but he gurgled and made a face that Kilian interpreted as a smile.
“I won’t tell Jacobo,” he said, amazed. “It will be our secret.”
The baby raised its eyes to Bisila.
“His future brothers and sisters won’t notice the difference.”
Bisila hung her head.
“He won’t have any more brothers and sisters,” she whispered.
Kilian looked at her, perplexed.
“I was very ill, Kilian,” she explained. “I can’t have more children.”
Kilian did not want to know any more, not at that moment. He was with her, and in his arms, he held a descendant of his father, Antón, and all the other names that appeared on the house’s genealogical tree since the first Kilian centuries before.
Nothing else mattered.
“Fernando will be our child, Bisila,” he said. “And I like the name you chose for him. It’s from there and here, yours and mine. Tell me, what does Laha stand for?”
“It means ‘someone with a good heart.’ Like you.”
The baby grabbed hold of Kilian’s finger with his small hand, and Kilian smiled, filled with joy.
Bisila felt greatly relieved. At that moment, she knew she would never love a man like she loved Kilian.
She had honored tradition and was now a widow free to do what she wished with her life. But above all, she had come back from the depths strengthened both in her beliefs and in her love for him.
Iniko timidly came over to them, continuing to move his feet to the rhythm of the music. His hand still clasped the pendant round his neck.
“What are you hiding in your hand, son?” asked Kilian.
Bisila touched the head covered in the green hat. “It’s a sign of punishment. Father Rafael put it on him for talking in Bubi instead of in Spanish. I’ll take him up to my mother again. He’s happy in Bissappoo.”
Iniko began to pull naggingly at his mother’s dress while rubbing an eyebrow.
“Yes, I’m coming,” she said. “Today is the beginning of ?m?t?la . . .”
They celebrated the transition from ?m?gera to ?m?t?la, the subtle change from spring’s beginning to its fullness. For the Bubis, ?m?gera meant the beginning, the start, the morning, vitality, and movement, and ?m?t?la represented permanence, strength, perseverance, stability, and preservation. The red and the green. The fire and the earth.
“It’s time to begin preparing the next harvest,” said Kilian. “The crops are growing nonstop. It will be a good one.” He returned the baby to his mother’s arms. “Meanwhile,” he added with uncertainty, “we’ll have a little more time . . . for ourselves.” Just then, Kilian felt some pats on his thigh. He looked down and found Ismael trying to get his attention. The child asked him if he had also come there to dance and explained to him, with a hurried chatter, that he had come up with his mother, with his brother, and with Oba and that since he was now grown up, they had let him play a drum. Kilian looked up and saw a red-faced Julia looking for the little one.
Julia stopped to say hello to Bisila, without taking her eyes off the baby in her arms. Kilian saw her frown. Bisila and Iniko continued on, followed by Ismael.
“Once Ismael hears the drums, it’s impossible to hold him back,” said Julia. “I didn’t know that Bisila had another child. Have you seen the color of its skin?”
“Yes, Julia,” said Kilian, looking at her straight in the eye. “This one is definitely mine.”
“Kilian!” Bisila protested, trying to catch her breath. “If I were snow, would I have melted in your hands yet?”
Kilian’s burning fingers explored her still-perspiring body and traveled across every centimeter of her skin over and over again, trying to recover the time lost.
“Not yet.” Kilian wove his fingers in hers and flattened her with his weight. “You don’t know how much I’ve missed you!”
“You’ve told me a thousand times!” Bisila delicately pushed him. She could hardly breathe.
Kilian lay down and leaned on his elbow to look at her, tracing her face.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t want anything to do with me,” he confessed.
Bisila closed her eyes. “I had a lot of time to think of me.”
Kilian frowned. It tormented him to think of her suffering, trying to join fragments in her mind and soul, in a small village surrounded by forest, fulfilling the rites of mourning for a husband she had not loved, while a forced new life grew inside her. And it was all Jacobo’s fault. Kilian clicked his tongue and shook his head to rid the next thought. Jacobo was also the cause of Bisila’s freedom. How ironic: violence had led to happiness. If Jacobo had not killed Mosi, they would still be forced to meet in secret.
How had she been able to overcome it all?