They talked to them as if they were some ignorant oafs, as if they had never left that enclosed valley and did not know how the outside world operated.
“Remember, Jacobo,” Kilian had asked him, “how the Bubis’ land was obtained? In the end, we will have to be thankful to them for the lesson.”
What they never talked about in the meetings was the profits the building speculators would make for land whose price was artificially inflated the very moment it no longer belonged to the inhabitants of Pasolobino.
Jacobo looked at his brother. How had he managed to keep going after everything that had happened? When Kilian had finally managed to settle in Spain, he had lost his wife. Jacobo remembered the day that Pilar, a quiet, sensible, and cautious woman, had arrived in the house to look after Mariana in her last months of life. Who would have said that little by little, she would open a place for herself in his brother’s heart and lead him to the altar? It was true that Kilian had not hesitated to marry her when he found out that she was pregnant. But it was also true that thanks to her, his brother had managed to calm the unease he had brought back with him from Africa. Pilar had been a brief parenthesis of peace in Kilian’s life. Now the unrest had returned and Jacobo had a slight inkling why.
“I suppose you’ve read the press recently . . .”
Kilian nodded. “It’s been years since we heard anything, and now nothing but terrible things are coming out.”
“They’re not all terrible. They say that the one in charge now wants to have good relations with Spain.”
“Let’s see how long they last.” Kilian was not so interested in the latest political developments as in the descriptions of journalists who had been in Malabo after the so-called Liberty Coup of August 1979, at the hands of the new president, Teodoro Obiang, when the doors of the houses opened and the streets filled with people who, stunned, began hugging one another in happiness.
All the journalists described the country that Macías had left behind as catastrophic. Malabo was in ruins, submerged in neglect and devoured by the forest and corruption. Could people really believe that the nightmare was over? Would they be freed of forced labor? Would the pillaging of their crops come to an end? Thanks to the news on the trial in which Macías was condemned and executed, Kilian had read spine-chilling articles that confirmed the barbarism that had reigned in Guinea. The country had turned into a concentration camp. The regions were devastated due to the flight of their inhabitants, because of the genocide carried out by that lunatic, and because of the epidemic of diseases brought on by the lack of food and sanitation. Guinea had been on the edge of complete oblivion. And he had abandoned his Bisila with two children there? How many times had he been disgusted with himself!
If it had not been for Manuel’s help, he would have gone crazy. Every so often, he sent his friend a check, and Manuel gave the money to the doctors who went there on humanitarian missions. Only money. No letters. Not even one line that could be used to accuse her of anything. They both knew that they were alive thanks to the chain of doctors. That small gesture had been his nighttime consolation, as it confirmed the permanent feeling in his chest, intimate, secret, mysterious, hidden, that she was alive, that her heart was beating.
“Don’t think about it too much,” said Jacobo. “I’m happy that things are going better for them, but that is all behind us now, isn’t it?”
He rubbed his blemished eye, an indelible reminder of the beating once given to him by his brother. He knew that Kilian had never forgiven him, and he would not forget what he had done.
Kilian remained in silence. For him, nothing was behind him.
Every second of his life, he refused to accept that his forced earthly separation was the end.
20
The End or the Beginning
2004 . . .
“And Mom?” Daniela asked, her brow wrinkled in confusion and relief. “What was her role in this story?”
Since Kilian had relived what he had locked in his heart for over thirty years, the trickle of questions had not ceased. It had not been enough to realize that Laha was Jacobo’s biological son, Clarence’s half brother, and Daniela’s cousin. No. The truth demanded more explanations.
Kilian sighed. He had never said and she had never asked, but Pilar had been certain that his heart belonged to another. The only thing she asked him to do, the very day they got married, was to take off the African collar he wore.
“Your mother and I had many good times together, and she gave me you,” he answered at last. “God willed it that she die soon afterward.”
He did not tell her that he had suspected that the spirits had taken her early so his soul could be completely faithful to Bisila.
“Uncle Kilian,” interrupted Clarence, “didn’t you ever think of going back to Guinea?”
“I hadn’t the courage.”
Kilian paced around the sitting room. He stopped in front of the window and contemplated the vivid June landscape. It was very complicated for him to explain. As time passed, he tended to remember all he had given up or lost, rather than what had been gained.
No doubt. He had been a coward. And what was ten times worse, he had finally become comfortable in his valley. He remembered everything he had been reading in the press about the happenings in Equatorial Guinea’s recent history and its relations with Spain. How had they gone from a close union to a painful reminder? Some said that the decision not to send a military unit to protect Obiang just after he overthrew Macías—which had allowed the Moroccan Guard to come on the scene—had been the main reason for the subsequent failure of Spanish interests, marked by the absence of a clear and decisive foreign policy and a fear of being labeled neocolonialist. Spain had not responded quickly enough to the request to support the ekuele, the Guinean currency, nor to the request to cover the Guinean budget for five years, which would have guaranteed it preferential treatment in future negotiations, nor to the country’s need to create a legal and economic climate that would lend security to possible investors.