Kilian opened his eyes and turned his head.
“Your mother,” he began, “told me that she would like us to be buried beside each other, and I’m not going to go against her.” Daniela gave a barely noticeable nod. She pressed her lips together hard to hold back her emotion. “But I’d like you to do something . . . I’d like you and Laha to do something for me. When you go back to Fernando Po, take a bag with two handfuls of soil from my garden and spread one on Sampaka’s royal palm tree avenue and the other on Grandfather Antón’s grave in the Santa Isabel cemetery.”
Laha noticed that Daniela was finding it very difficult to keep her composure. He went over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Kilian gave him a weak smile. It had been inevitable that Bisila’s and his paths would cross again. It had only been a question of time for the spirits to allow them some peace. He was completely sure that Bisila, like him, was happy to have lived long enough to see their children together.
Kilian rubbed his fingers over the small shells on the well-worn leather collar. “Help me, Daniela. Undo the knot.”
Daniela did so. Kilian held the collar in the palm of his hand for a good while, closed his fist, and stretched out his arm to his daughter.
“Take this to Bisila and tell her that where I’m going, I won’t need it. Also tell her that I hope it protects her as it has protected me.” He shrugged and looked again at the blue sky. “That’s all. Now I’d like to sleep . . .”
That’s what he wanted: to finally rest in a small island carpeted by cocoa trees with bright leaves and pods, where the days and the nights were the same length and no shade of green was missing, and where he had helped cultivate the food of the gods; to cross the ribbon of coves and bays before climbing the slope of the fevers and note the smell of the small, delicate white flowers of the egombegombes; to hear the laughs, the jokes, and the songs from the throats of the Nigerians and vibrate to the rhythm of their drums; to brighten his view with the color of the clotes on the streets of a charming city laid out at the feet of the misty mountains of Santa Isabel; to bathe himself in the sweet odor and sticky warmth; to walk under the paradise’s green nave of palm trees, cedars, ceibas, and ferns where the small birds, monkeys, and colored lizards played; to feel the force of the wind and the rain of a tropical storm on his skin and then let himself be caressed by a warm breeze infused with the scent of roasted cocoa.
Oh, how he wished to be on that island and feel Bisila’s clear gaze!
Kilian lost consciousness that same night. He was delirious for two days and, in his terrible agony, spoke words that Daniela and Clarence could not understand; Laha would not translate them. From time to time, the dying man spoke Bisila’s name, and all signs of suffering left him; he even seemed to brighten before shrinking back. This went on until he gave his last breath and peace returned to his body.
A week after the funeral, Laha had to leave for work, and Daniela stayed with the children to tidy up and sort out Kilian’s clothes and effects. The cousins did not allow tears to flow so as not to further upset Samuel and Enoá, who did not understand why their grandfather was not in the House of Rabaltué, where he had always been. As an explanation, they told him that their granddad had transformed into a butterfly and flown up to heaven.
One afternoon, when they had finished putting Kilian’s things in boxes, Clarence saw Daniela putting away the collar with the cowrie and Achatina shells and thought it strange. Her cousin answered, “I owe my mother a little justice. If I take it to Bisila, I’m accepting that my father was unfaithful to my mother in his heart. And I don’t want to look at the past anymore. Laha and I have a present and a future to enjoy. There is so much to do! Enough with the nostalgia that has impregnated the walls of this house. I mean this for you as well, Clarence . . .”
She sat on the bed with the collar in her hands and cried. Clarence said nothing. She let her get it all out, freeing herself of the loneliness that comes when the older generation dies.
After a while, Daniela dried away the tears and gave her the collar. “Here,” she said in a mixture of resignation and decisiveness. “Do whatever you want. I neither want nor wish to understand it.”
Then Clarence remembered how Iniko put the collar, which she still had, around her neck to keep away the evil spirits that surrounded them. She did not find it in the least strange how different the stories of the people in that house had been, as if some higher force had decided to pair them up in the most suitable manner as events unfolded.
Kilian and Bisila had loved each other beyond distance and time, and even though they had not heard from each other in decades, they had maintained an intimate and secret conversation. In contrast, Iniko and she had loved each other at one specific moment in their lives and had separated by mutual agreement, conscious that neither of them was going to give up their life for the other.
However, Daniela and Laha were the ones who had suffered most from a past that had marked their relationship from the beginning and from which they had to unshackle themselves to find their true place, to be free.
Clarence sighed. Daniela was right to say that she was too nostalgic. She lived more in the memories, her own and others’, than in her own present. She took so seriously the task of perpetuating the traditions that she was becoming another stone in that sturdy house. But what was she to do? In a couple of days, there would be no one left there. After centuries, the task would fall on her of closing the doors on a House of Rabaltué that would become, like so many others, just a summer home. There she would leave the voices of dozens of lives whose owners were listed on the genealogical tree in the hall, a silent witness of those who had left and would never return. That was it. Life.
She looked into her hands at Bisila and Kilian’s collar and knew exactly what she would do with it. She would prepare a package with two handfuls of earth from the garden and send it to Iniko, along with the collar, so he would give it to Bisila together with Kilian’s final words. Since she had given up her idea of moving her grandfather’s remains to Pasolobino, at least she would make sure the soil of his home valley would be with him. She was certain that Iniko would know how to tell Bisila what had happened with the same thoughtfulness and love as she would. To other people, all that respect for one’s forebearers might seem stupid, but she knew that Iniko would understand. And she had no doubt that there was nobody better than Bisila to fulfill the last wishes of her uncle just as he had expressed.
A small girl with braided hair appeared in the room, hugging her teddy bear. Daniela picked Enoá up in her arms and took her back to bed.