“And why are they carrying their shoes? So as not to dirty them?”
“More likely so as to not wear them out. They try and save as much as they can.” He chuckled. “But tonight they’ll be spending a little of their earnings on alcohol and women. By the way, I see you’re scratching less.”
“Manuel prepared Dámaso’s remedy. It seems to be working.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Jacobo. “There is nothing like experience!”
Kilian agreed.
“Hey, Jacobo. Don’t you think Dad should go home? Each time I see him, he’s more exhausted. He didn’t even want to come with us to dinner tonight.”
“I agree, but he’s very stubborn. I’ve brought it up many times, and he just tells me he knows what he’s doing and that it’s normal to get tired at his age. He doesn’t even want Manuel to examine him. I don’t know.”
They parked the pickup in front of the Ribagorza store and climbed the side stairs to knock. Julia took less than two seconds to swing open the door and invite them into a large and welcoming living room, which opened onto a terrace that served as both a dining room and a sitting room. It had a large table with wooden chairs in front of a rattan sofa. Kilian’s eyes wandered the walls, decorated with pictures of African themes, a red wooden spear almost two meters long, and a carey shell. The exception was a photograph of Pasolobino that brought out a nostalgic smile. On his right was an ivory tusk on a small piece of furniture, and scattered round the room were numerous ebony figurines. The most Western touch came from the Grundig record player and radio that sat on a small table beside the sofa, next to some issues of Hola and Reader’s Digest.
Julia introduced Kilian to her parents, Generosa and Emilio, and offered the brothers a contrití, a popular island infusion, while the cook and the two boys finished preparing and serving the meal. Among the delicacies, Generosa had ordered the cook to prepare some toast with Iranian caviar and to cook a fritambo, an antelope stew that Kilian found delicious.
“I was hesitant to open a jar of marinated meat that my mother sent me from Pasolobino,” explained Julia’s mother, a stocky woman with smooth skin and shoulder-length wavy hair in a brown skirt and a knitted ochre jersey, “but I finally decided on my cook’s star dish. I hope you will come again. Then I will prepare you one of my mother’s recipes.”
Kilian liked Generosa and Emilio. He talked for a long time with them; they wanted to hear about the goings-on in Spain, so he repeated what he had already told Julia in the shop. Generosa reminded him of his own mother, although she was more talkative than Mariana. She still had mettle from her youth in the mountains, maintaining her excellent health. It was necessary to have endured so many years on Fernando Po. Emilio was a man of medium build, with only a few wiry hairs, a short mustache, and bright eyes like his daughter’s. Kilian saw that he was quiet and easygoing, well mannered with a smile never far away. Emilio asked after their father, whom he had not seen in days, and regretted that his health was not as good as it used to be.
“Do you know,” he said, “how lucky we were to have each other when we arrived here for the first time? How different everything was! Now the roads are paved and have drains. We have water, electricity in the houses and streets, telephones, just like Pasolobino!”
Kilian picked up on the irony. There could not have been two worlds more different than his village and Santa Isabel. The Europeans who came from large cities would probably not notice the difference, but Kilian, a man used to livestock and villages full of mud, did. He began to understand how Emilio and Generosa had managed to adapt so well to the comforts of a place like this. They had even been able to give Julia a good education in the schools on the island, a luxury . . . Perhaps one day he would be able to love this bit of Africa as Julia’s family did, but for the moment, he still sighed over the smallest details, such as the discovery, in a corner of the dining room, of a simple altar to the Virgin of Guayente—patroness of their valley—along with an image of Our Lady of the Pillar and the memory of parties in his house rekindled by the taste of the mellow wine from the small cask that Generosa had received from home to accompany the typical lard pastries from Pasolobino.
Julia laughed. During the meal, the girl had been busy trying to win Jacobo’s attention with jokes and intelligent conversation. She had dressed up very prettily for the occasion, in a Vichy yellow-and-brown short-sleeved dress and her hair tied up in an elegant chignon that showed off her features. Kilian was sorry that his brother was not interested. They would have made a very good couple, even more so tonight with Jacobo looking impeccable in his linen trousers and white shirt. Julia and Jacobo were young, attractive, and fun. A good combination, thought Kilian. He felt sad for Julia, seeing the hopeful anticipation in her eyes when Jacobo responded with a smile or a laugh.
One of the boys indicated that coffee would be served on the porch that led to the garden, lit up by kerosene lamps swarming with mosquitoes. The night was so clear that the moon would have been enough, projecting its light over the great mango and the huge avocado trees—Kilian reckoned that they were between eight and ten meters tall—that reigned over the exotic trees in the garden. Julia suggested that they play a game of cards, but her parents wanted to continue the conversation.
Julia’s father was afraid that the winds of independence of places like Kenya and the Belgian Congo would arrive in Guinea and put their businesses in danger. Generosa skillfully but conclusively ended the conversation when she gathered that Kilian was not going to stop asking questions. The young man felt a little frustrated, as he would have willingly shared what he had learned about the Mau Mau movement on the ship. He could not begin to imagine that this perfectly organized colonial world had any cracks. Nevertheless, he did not want to be rude and followed the new topics of conversation.
Every now and then, Jacobo glanced at his watch. He could imagine where and what Marcial and Mateo were up to at that moment, and a knot of urgency formed in his stomach.
A few minutes later, a boy came to tell them that a worker from Sampaka, Waldo, was there to fetch Massa Kilian and Massa Jacobo and bring them back to the plantation.
“Some Calabars were celebrating a party in the barracks”—Waldo talked quickly when he entered, in an agitated manner that Kilian found a little forced—“when they got involved in a big fight, with machetes and everything.”
“They are like animals!” Generosa commented, blessing herself. “They are probably from that cannibal sect. Haven’t you heard? In the market they said something about how they had eaten the bishop in Río Muni . . .”
“What are you saying, Mom?” Julia protested.
Jacobo asked Waldo to continue.